The $4200 Cluvens Gatling Battlestation is a lot to pay for a work desk, but if you are a knowledge worker and you are not using multiple screens, you are leaving valuable time and money on the table. The Battlestation might actually pay for itself in weeks. Cluvens View 9 Images –
The 2.0 version is now available on pre-order, it’s bigger and stronger, with lots of user feedback taken into account in the redesign, though the guns still don’t work and the caterpillar-style tracks are functional but undriven, so you can push it around but can’t drive it.
So that’s the first thing to know. The Battlestation’s quad tracks don’t provide any motive force, but they do provide a stable base on almost any surface.
The Battlestation can be fitted with three monitors up to 29” each or one 49” Ultra wide Samsung G9 and it will still perform its second-most impressive trick, which is to raise its roof to allow ingress and egress. On tippy-tracks, the Battlestation stands 220 cm at its full height, so it requires a big room.
The Gatling Workstation’s most impressive trick is the access to information it offers.
We have known for several decades that if you are a knowledge worker, your productivity is directly related to the amount of screen real estate you have!
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Gartner Group has led the charge in research on the subject, and it pronounced in 2002 that productivity is directly related to total screen real-estate.
Research has proven conclusively that multiple-screens provide a significant (up to 50%) increase in productivity, primarily because of the amount of time we spend switching between windows or applications. If it’s just a flick of the eye to capture that information, it’s quicker and you get lower error rates.
Consider how much time you spend each day looking for the right browser window.
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The Graphical User Interface was a revelation because it gave us a desktop metaphor and the ability to arrange commonly used windows/applications on a single screen. What we’ve failed to grasp is the amount of time we spend sorting through multiple windows. One wide screen or multiple smaller screens save all that “transitional time”, so instead of sorting through a deck of cards (screens), your most commonly used windows/apps are instantaneously available.
Many of the arguments are well articulated in this article: “Numerous studies have proven that providing staff with a multiple monitor setup is a cheap means of increasing productivity. The results of the studies vary in the specific numbers, but overall, teams can expect anywhere from a 10 – 50% increase in an individual’s productivity, which results in a simple return on investment. It is estimated that the cost of the hardware necessary to setup dual monitors for an individual would pay for itself in a matter of weeks.”
Then there are the health benefits.
The human body was not designed to sit on a chair, which might explain why back complaints are so prolific in knowledge workers. “Zero gravity” positions can be adjusted to help minimize problems by reducing stress in the first place.
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If the Gatling Battlestation and the Scorpion are a little too edgy for you, the company also has a Unicorn Model that is slightly more conservative, and the new Manticore 2.0 is the most conservative of the bunch.
There are now many companies that produce workstations that offer significant productivity gains, and we’ll be publishing a guide to this fast-growing marketplace in the coming days.
Finally, if you think that the existing designs are all a bit macho and geeky, it ain’t necessarily so!
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Source: Cluvens View gallery – 9 images
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