Set up lighting for better video calls and meetings

It’s been months since many of us have begun working from homes. Strangely, even though I have been working remotely for over seven years, I haven’t been working at home all that time. I am known to work from coffee shops, parks, malls, and strangest of places. This move to working from home all the time has caused me to look at my work setup at home. I have created videos for some of these on my YouTube channel.

Video calls are a standard feature of working remotely. In fact, no other service saw as much growth as Zoom and Slack during the pandemic. Many other services also ramped up the scale and features of their video conference solutions. While the technology is solid, the experience still depends on you.

In my case, the problem with video calls was during late hours. And I had most of my calls at night as my team is 9 timezones away. The light source was weak for night calls which led to less-than-optimal experience. The obvious solution is to look for a better light source. I read up a bit and went with a simple ring light* from Amazon. It’s generic but at CAD 40, it does the job.

I reviewed the light along with a comparison with and without the light and noticed a significant difference. You can see that video below or here where I talk about the light, its placement, brightness settings, and the difference it creates.

If you are facing dark videos when on calls at late hours, do consider this ring light or something similar. There are more expensive ones which have temperature controls and even color settings. For my needs, this does the job.

* Affiliate link

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