My Hardware
Every machine, device, and desk setup I use to work from anywhere — and one purchase I regret.
Last updated: March 24, 2026
This isn’t a desk setup post. I don’t have a fixed workspace with mood lighting and cable management. I work from my desk, the couch, the car, coffee shops — wherever I happen to be. My whole setup is built around that.
Everything here is Apple ecosystem. That’s not an accident. The way these devices hand off to each other — AirDrop, Universal Clipboard, Handoff, iCloud — means I don’t think about syncing or file transfers. It just works across all of them. The MacBook Air is the center of gravity; everything else orbits it.
The Laptop: MacBook Air M4
From the Author
My MacBook Air is a 15-inch M4, and it handles about 90% of what I do. Writing, editing, light video work, SSH sessions into my other machines, even running local AI models in a pinch.
If I could only keep one machine, this would be it. The fact that it’s fanless, lasts all day on battery, and weighs barely anything makes it the perfect portable workstation.
The Workhorse: Beelink Mini PC
From the Author
This little box sits on shelf under my stairs, where my internet routes into the house. It's hardwired to my network and does the heavy lifting I don’t want to do on the laptop. It runs Fedora, and I SSH into it from the MacBook Air to run Claude Code via tmux. When a build takes 20 minutes, I close the laptop and walk away. The Beelink keeps working.
It’s not powerful by any stretch, but for running CLI tools, background tasks, and long coding sessions, it’s honestly overpowered. It's on 24/7 and is in constant use by my AI tasks.
The Agent: Mac Mini M1
From the Author
Next to the Beelink, there is an old M1 Mac Mini. This was my primary machine back in 2020. Today it runs OpenClaw, which is a custom agentic AI assistant you may have heard of. It connects to Obsidian, has its own memory system, and handles tasks I throw at it throughout the day.
The M1 is old at this point, but it works fine for this. API-based agents don’t need powerful hardware — they spend most of their time waiting on network calls, not crunching data locally. If you’re setting up something similar, the current base model Mac Mini is more than enough.
The Studio: Mac Studio M4 Max
The Mac Studio is my video editing and screen recording machine. It's the entry level Max build, 32GB of RAM, 512GB storage. Final Cut Pro runs beautifully on it, and it handles 4K exports without breaking a sweat. YouTube gear and workflow is a separate post, so I won't go too deep on that here.
When the Studio isn’t editing video, it doubles as a local inference server. I use LM Studio’s LM Link to serve models from it to my laptop over the network. So even the idle time is productive.
Remote Access: Screens 5, Tailscale & SSH
This is the glue that makes the multi-machine setup actually portable. Without remote access, I’d be chained to my desk.
Screens 5 gives me full remote desktop access to all my Macs. I can control the Mac Studio from the couch, check on the Mac Mini from my phone, or pull up any machine from anywhere. It even works over cellular.
Tailscale meshes all my devices into a private network. Every machine — Macs, the Beelink, my phone — can reach every other machine by hostname, no matter where I am. No port forwarding, no VPN configs. It just works.
SSH handles the Beelink. I open a terminal, connect, and I’m in a tmux session running Claude Code within seconds. This combo — Screens 5, Tailscale, and SSH — is the linchpin of the whole work-from-anywhere approach.
Mobile & Wearables
- iPhone 16 Pro — It’s the hub for everything when I’m away from a desk. Screens 5, Tailscale, Claude, Grok on the action button.
- AirPods Pro — Daily drivers. Noise cancellation when I need to focus, transparency mode when the kids need something.
- AirPods Max (original) — These are strictly for Final Cut Pro audio editing these day. The high qualiy audio and flat frequency response make them great for mixing. I don’t use them casually anymore, because they don't work so well with Vision Pro and if I'm on the go I prefer the formfactor of the Pros.
- Ozlo Sleepbuds – I need less sleep than my wife, which means I'm usually up later... but I also love to listen to podcasts at night. These sleepbuds are amazing because you can start a podcast or YouTube video and when you fall asleep they stop playing and put on some ambient noise. If your partner snores, they could also be amazing to block out that sound. My wife doesn't snore, I do. So it's great that I can block out the sound of my own snoring. They are very comfortable to wear, unlike AirPods Pro which are pretty uncomfortable to sleep in.
From the Author
- Apple Watch Ultra — I’ll be honest, this is a regret. It’s too large, uncomfortable to sleep with, and the action button triggers constantly from wrist movements. I should have gone with the regular Apple Watch, which is what I had prior. If you’re considering the Ultra, try it on first and exercise that 14 day return window Apple Provides.
Apple Vision Pro
The Vision Pro pairs with the MacBook Air to create a massive virtual monitor. I’m talking a screen the size of a wall, and it follows me wherever I go. It’s the ultimate portable display.
I use this setup all the time. One of the most fun uses is in my Tesla Cybertruck during my kids’ sports practices. I park, put on the Vision Pro, connect to the MacBook Air, and I have a full workstation. Two hours of productive work while being present for the kids before and after. It’s an elite portable setup.
The price objection is real — it’s expensive. But people regularly spend $2,000+ on a standalone monitor. The Vision Pro does that and more, and I can take it anywhere.
The Cybertruck
Yes, I love the Cybertruck. Pairing that with the Apple Vision Pro and it seems that I love all the most hated tech.
The Cybertruck is polarizing, I get it. First of all, I don't care about politics. I am a proud American – but I'm also a nerd and there has never been a better nerd vehicle.
Honestly, it is the best vehicle on the road, you just haven't driven one yet (or let it drive you, to be more accurate) if you think otherwise. Steer by wire, air suspension, huge screens for entertainment, 15 speakers, storage for days, it can charge all of my devices (Laptop, Phone, Vision Pro) endless, and did I mention, it drives itself?
Combined with the Vision Pro, it’s genuinely like living in the future.
It also has Grok built in for voice queries, just tell it where you want to go... the post office, chipotle, then the grocery store... it takes you there in that order. Hands free.
Out of my last 5K miles, the car has driven 99% of the time, with zero intervention.
If you're thinking of checking out a tesla, use my referral link to save a little cash or whatever their current promotion is.
Storage: Build Your Own SSDs
I decided to buying overpriced pre-built external drives. I got an NVMe enclosure and a Samsung drive, snapped them together. Now I have a faster drive for less money. It takes about 30 seconds.
I keep a few of these around for backups and shuttling large video files between machines. Cheap, fast, and dead simple.
This is all you need:
From the Author
From the Author
Desk & Chair
From the Author
The desk is a Flexispot E6 MAX standing desk. It was a review unit provided to me from Flexispot. Price wise comes in under $400. The value is solid for what you get. Fair warning: it’s a pain to assemble. Budget an afternoon and an extra set of hands really helps.
The chair is a Capisco by HÅG. It’s a premium ergonomic chair that lets you sit in about five different positions — forward, backward, perched, reclined. Great for long sessions. The only downside is it sits high, which affects camera framing for YouTube recordings. I’m still figuring out the best setup for that.
Everything I’ve described here orbits around one idea: the laptop handles almost everything, and the other machines extend it. My YouTube setup is really the only thing that is fixed in one location.
I’m able to be around my family so much more than previous generations because my laptop can handle almost everything. I don’t need to be in an office, at a specific desk, or tied to any one location. The MacBook Air is the one piece I’d tell anyone to invest in first.
