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It was day one of work from home when I realized my company laptop camera refused to cooperate with Zoom. (Yes, I tried everything.) It wasn’t ideal, but I would have to Zoom via my iPhone until we were back at our World Trade Center offices.
It was day two of work from home that I realized Zooming on my phone was not so simple. 45 minutes into my daily hour-long Zoom check-in, my arm went numb; holding my iPhone parallel to my face for that long made my limb feel like a spaghetti noodle.
Time for plan C. On the third day, on a table in the kitchen, I stacked some books and topped it with a mug—something to prop my iPhone against. Brilliant. I logged onto Zoom and didn’t think too much when a coworker prompted the 15-person group, “Does anybody hear an echo?” I didn’t, and figured there must be something wrong on her end.
“I think it’s you,” said another coworker, sliding into my DMs on Slack. “Maybe try mute?” I was the source of the echo; apparently, placing my phone’s speaker (located on the bottom of the iPhone) flush against a book was the reason for the muffly echo pervading our call.
I needed to make this work, and so I turned to Google. According to the internet, my problem could be solved simply with an iPhone stand.
In a stroke of genius, someone, somewhere had engineered an iPhone stand with a bendy, adjustable arm and (bonus!) an LED light that illuminates your face with a soft glow. Influencers have long known of their existence, using these stands to create makeup tutorials, flattering IGTV streams, and other sorts of #content. Now, I imagined it would serve perfectly for my check-in meetings.
After ordering and receiving my stand and then following a delightfully easy set up that included clamping the stand onto a table and plugging in the light, I had finally succeeded. On day 7 of quarantine, I Zoomed like a pro.
