I’ve been working on upgrades to my desk, and tried out the Vivo 16 Inch Above/Behind VESA Monitor Livestream Device Shelf Mount.
The image is a stock image from the manufacturer, not my setup, but this replaced so many things for me. It attaches to a monitor mount in between the bracket and the monitor. Not only is it good as a shelf, but I’m able to attach accessories to it.
I’ve bought two of these, one for each of my monitors. There is a webcam attached with an adjustable ball head, an old tablet that shows an information display, and a light to better light the webcam. As the bezel of monitors becomes thinner, attaching a webcam to the monitor itself is starting to actually hide some of the screen. You can mount a webcam or even a professional camera dead center and still have plenty of room on the shelf to add more small items.
The height you can adjust it to does depend on your monitor. I had to put them at different heights on different monitors due to where the ports were in relation to the mount. You may also have issues if the back of your monitor is curved. Reading reviews on Amazon, some people solved these issues by cutting off some of the bracket to make it shorter. Others had to get longer screws than the ones provided or get standoffs, both of which are fairly common needs for VESA monitor mounts.
Other people used it to hold speakers, as a shelf for their remotes, microphones, etc.
There are competing products, but none of them at a $20 price point.
- Ulanzi makes a similar top shelf for $43 at time of publish, which includes 3 ballheads…but you can get better ball heads yourself if you need them.
- HumanCentric offers theirs for $56 at time of publish. They have 3 sizes, a small, medium and extra large, the extra large being the $56 one and roughly the same shelf space as the Vivo. It seems to offer no specific advantage, except it is slightly shorter in length(so maybe you don’t need to cut it if it covers your ports), but hardly worth the price increase for that.
In all the mounting gear I’ve purchased for my desk, the price does seem high for what is essentially a piece of metal with some holes in it. But convenience is worth something. I have a second desk I use elsewhere where I will be using this to replace a cheap boom arm that holds up my webcam.