The Lying Down Desk came from a simple idea: how can I use a computer while lying down? I have had chronic back issues since I was a teenager and spent years dreaming of lying down while using a computer for years. Yet amazingly there wasn’t an easy way to do this. In solving this problem, I have ended up becoming an inventor and starting a small e-commerce business. Here’s the story so far…
Teenage Back Issues
Since I was a teenager I’ve had chronic back pain. I developed spondylolisthesis age 14 or 15, from a combination of genetic weakness and sports injury from overuse without proper postural support (nobody was telling a teenage athlete how to look after their back!) meaning one of the vertebrae (or the connector between two vertebrae) in my lower back had fractured over time, and I needed surgery to repair it with a couple of pins in to help the bone heal.
I was able to do most sports again – doing athletics, rugby, martial arts, cycling, and climbing. Interestingly, football is the only sport I’ve found to be a big problem.) I actually took up parkour too, which was something I had been wanting to do as a teenager, and recovering from surgery pushed me to try it. I even became a parkour coach alongside my main career. Yet despite what I was able to do physically, sitting and standing for long periods of time is not possible. When I read books, I lie on the floor (at university I was always searching out hidden library corners, sofas and bean bags), and when I’m travelling, I look for places to lie down and rest on trains or at stations.
Pain Using a Computer
Yet despite what I was physically able to do, sitting and standing for long periods of time is not possible. After about an hour of either sitting or standing, it becomes quite painful. As is the case for many people, I spend lots of time working on a computer, which has meant quite a lot of time in pain.
I did what I could to make it manageable. I learned how to hold my spine properly and sit and stand with good posture. I got a good ergonomic keyboard and mouse. I made sure my screen was at a good height. I tried a standing desk, swapping between sitting and standing. I even used an exercise ball instead of a chair. Yet it could not be avoided that sitting for extended periods of time was a problem, so I turned to figuring out a way of using a computer lying down.
Ideas, Breakthrough and Development
Amazingly – back pain is not new! – there wasn’t already an easy way to do this. The only option I could find to buy cost a few grand, based on a reclinable dentist chair type things, and DIY adaptations were messy to make and not good enough. I toyed with a projector onto the ceiling but it isn’t very practical. Then I had the idea — not an original one — of having a monitor somehow above my face, like someone lying on their back to use a Nintendo. So, how to get a monitor above my head easily…
I had my Eureka! Moment with an idea that seemingly nobody had thought of before… The breakthrough idea was to put a monitor under a table facing the floor. Obvious once you have it.
I used a proof-of-concept by putting my tablet above my head on a cardboard box with a hole cut in it (pictured below) between two chairs.
The main practical problem, however, is that the monitor has to be about 90cm from the floor to be the right distance from the eyes (70-75cm typically), so a usual table doesn’t work. To get the right height, I had the idea of putting a hole in a table and then adding with some sort of ‘shelf’ on top holding the monitor. The top of this could then also serve as a standing desk. This was the ‘3-in-1 design’ which was my first patent application.
I asked a carpenter friend to make something based off my design, we finalised the measurements, and I started using it as my primary desk in summer 2021. The setup has worked as well as I had hoped it would. My lower back pain eased, with little day-to-day (if I haven’t been out at a seated event, or cycling for a long time, etc), as well as an upper back/shoulder problem settling down. My default is to use it lying down, but if I’m just using it quickly then I stand at it, and if I’m doing something that needs pen and paper or eating at the same time then I’ll sit or stand. It also works to lie down and watch TV or a film – and others who have joined me have usually found it ‘surprisingly comfortable’!
I also had a quick go at a Kickstarter campaign, to see if enough pre-orders would come in to make it viable to do a manufacturing run. I knew this would be a long shot: if someone picked it up that it got enough traction to the right people, it might work out, but it was more something I expected to fizzle out but thought I may as well try.
Also, Post-Covid Syndrome…
After I had my prototype one for about a year, I then got Covid-19 and sadly developed moderate-severe long covid (Apr 2022). The damage to my nervous system includes ‘orthostatic intolerance’ – my body can’t handle being upright – so I spent lots of time lying down. It also means I have much less energy and need to spend much more time resting. So, I’m very glad I already had my lying down desk as it meant that I could still do computer work lying down, and when at rest had an easily usable monitor for watching videos etc.
… I guess it’s an idea with legs?!
I was really excited to have solved my problem after the design breakthrough – less pain in my life, hooray! Then about ten minutes later I realised… this idea has legs. Not only would this likely be helpful for others, but it could even be a viable business. So then I started to get on with the slow process of sharing the idea and developing a business.
I tried to find someone to partner with who would be interested in making these 3-in-1 desks, and had a few conversations with possible makers. One was interested and seemed up for it, but then decided later (after initial agreement but before pen was put to paper) to pivot their business in a different direction.
At the same time, I also worked on the second design: I knew there was going to be an easier way to make Lying Down Desks work: by attaching the monitor to the underside of a height adjustable desk. This has many advantages over the static version – such as taking up less space and the standing height being usable for different height people. However, it’s more fiddly to mount a monitor to the underside of a desk. The main problem is that the cross-bar on the desk gets in the way of a monitor which is mounted directly to the desk, so there needs to be some way of getting it deeper.
I figured out a couple of good methods, with the aim was to create an off-the-shelf product which anyone can buy and easily set up (without any drilling). Of course some people can make their own versions – which is great! – but without some basic woodworking skills, I wanted something anyone could easily use. At this stage I involved my brother Rowan to help out polishing the product and as a business partner. After trying a few options, we settled on a bracket concept on the frame as being the best approach.
This needed a separate patent, so, I spent many months working on that instead of any sort of business development… and was assisted by a friend who works as a patent attorney (huge thanks to that anonymous friend!). That went in at the start of spring 2024. Once that was submitted, I was able to turn my attention to the product and business side of things.
Getting a business going/while crippled
During this time I also became much more ill than I was before – since December 2023, at my best I’ve only been able to do about two hours’ work on a computer, and on bad days none at all, sometimes for weeks at a time… At the time of writing, I can do about 20 minutes on a laptop on a good day. So, launching the business, which would always be a fair amount of work, has been slower going than I would have liked. But: at least we exist!
Crawling through, by summer 2024, we finalised our design (there’s a bespoke part needed) and got our first batch of LDD Mounting Kits ready. A couple have been sent to people who found me before we launched. Then we turned to getting the website and other business bits and bobs ready…
… and then we had some surprise pre-launch media coverage! A journalist from the Guardian had spotted the static 3-in-1 design in the publication of patents, which they were writing about, and covered it in their story, featuring the Lying Down Desk as their top UK invention of the year.
Having seen that, the team who produce Have I Got News For You! decided to use the desk in their segment of ‘finish the newspaper headline’:
It was a bit surprising to get this coverage — especially being mentioned on such a big show as Have I Got News For You! — given that we had not yet got to the soft launch stage we were gradually working towards, or done any publicity (it only got picked up because a journalist was checking the patent publications). This covered the first design, not the new second one which is the one we are looking to sell, but nonetheless is very good publicity!
As you can probably tell looking at our website though, we aren’t yet a polished business. We made sure to cover the basics and have a form where someone can order a mounting kit from us, and some information about peripherals (which we can also sell, for customer ease), and have a blog post about how to type while lying down. But there’s a few things I had wanted us to have ready for publicity which weren’t managed. As well as some more information and blog posts, I want to make the designs and a guide for the static 3-in-1 Lying Down Desk available, so that people can do DIY versions of that (there is a 90% draft but there’s still a fair bit in that final 10%), as well as information on how our kit can be used to set up a Lying Down not-actually-Desk for someone to use while lying on a bed or sofa. Hopefully these will come soon.
In the meantime — here we are, and if anyone in the UK wants their own height-adjustable Lying Down Desk, get in touch!