The Couchmaster Cyworx aims to fix a problem that has burst into the open as more people work from home; sitting with a laptop on your sofa gets real painful real fast. Enter the Cyworx, a beautifully designed bamboo-made mini-desk, with a mouse mat, tablet notch, pouches for your peripherals, supporting side cushions and cooling slits for your laptop all included. The Cyworx is certainly a big upgrade on those tiny lap trays (and most definitely my own previous solution, a cushion), but if your sofa is too shallow, it will tip over, and if it's too deep, getting back up will make you look less than dignified...
For
Huge upgrade over your lap
Stops you hunching quite so much
Thin for easy storage
Against
Needs a minimum couch depth
Bit unwieldy
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Six years ago, the Couchmaster Cyworx would have been one of those products consigned to a niche within a niche in one subsection of the computer-accessory market. But thanks to Covid and a vast increase in working from home, it comes as a potential back-ache salve for millions of space-starved (and perennially hunched-over) home and hybrid workers consigned to their sofa for at least a part of each week.
I work fully remotely, and while I enjoy the luxury of having a great standing desk in my home office, I do like moving about the house over the course of each week to fight the monotony and occasional loneliness that comes with this work arrangement.
While I can make do with my dining table for a few hours a week, or sit in the garden for a while on sunny days, the lounge has been a constant problem area. Cushions, little trays, coffee tables and sometimes my (quickly roasting) legs have all had a go, and have all led to pain of one type or another.
So when I got the chance to get a lil' portable desk to use in a couch-work scenario (or indeed for casual gaming while ignoring a streaming TV series in the background, don't judge, you do it too), you can bet I jumped on it.
Couchmaster Cyworx: Key specifications
(Image credit: Future / Erlingur Einarsson)
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Material:
Bamboo, fabric
Table dimensions:
75 x 33 x 1.5 cm
Cushion dimensions:
60 x 20 x 16 cm
Maximum inside distance between cushions:
70cm
Package contents:
Bamboo surface, two side cushions, mouse bag, mousepad, universal tablet mount, installation manual
Weight:
4.6kg
Design and build
(Image credit: Future / Erlingur Einarsson)
For most desks, a considerable, and labour-heavy, assembly process is needed. Not so much for the Couchmaster Cyworx. But surprisingly, there's some needed still. The main deskplate comes as is, but the mousemat and the faux-leather wrist rests for the person-facing edges needed attaching before I could sit down and get going. This only took a couple of minutes, and it was easy enough even for me and my hand tremors to manage. There is also the option of attaching the little storage pouch for your mouse onto the front of the desk plate, a suggestion I dutifully abided by. Two minutes' work and I was ready to go.
Except not quite.
User experience
(Image credit: Future / Erlingur Einarsson)
The Cyworx also comes with two cushions. These two cuboids are fabric-clad with a firm but not too-hard surface, to rest the desk on on each side of you. At about 200 pounds, I am not the world's slightest man, but not nearly the biggest either. As I sat down I placed the two cushions on each side (one of those has pockets for your phone and other incidentals) and then lifted the desk into place. The cushions have a stated max support gap of 70cm (as the desk is 75cm wide) and I got close to that limit with the cushions nestled up tightly against me.
Furthermore, the seat depth of the sofa or couch is going to be paramount for your comfort. My sofa is relatively average in terms of seat depth, with flat seats at about 70cm, and sitting flush against the back, the front edge of the cushions matched nicely with the front edge of the seat. However, if I then sat back with the desk in front of me, it protruded slightly off the front of the cushions, so I had to shift the cushions forward off the edge to get a comfortable seating position for myself.
That, in turn, meant that I had to be a little more careful in any manoeuvring, as I felt like I could tip the desk off the front of the sofa rather easily.
It should, of course, be noted that I am an extremely clumsy person, so this might not be a universal issue. However, it does highlight that the sofa seat depth is going to be a factor.
An additional niggle for me has been that getting up requires lifting the entire setup and finding somewhere safe to put it, so if you have wires attached to the laptop you'll have to make sure nothing gets caught or yanked out of place by accident, and that your computer or mouse slips off the surface if you don't hold it perfectly level in the process. Again, the clumsy clause applies here...
(Image credit: Future / Erlingur Einarsson)
Those niggles aside, my time with the Cyworx has been mostly a delight. It definitely stops me hunching over, and it improves the ergonomics of WFH couch living by allowing such a generous space for a mouse, along with the nifty little notch for a tablet meaning it's not going to become the victim of an inadvertent crushing from lying flat on the floor or the sofa.
The materials are all incredibly comfortable to the touch, with the bamboo material pleasing my more eco-conscious sensibilities in particular.
I felt almost no long-term irritation from either the fabric on the cushions or the materials on the desk plate and could work for much longer at a time using the Cyworx than with any other makeshift solution I'd tried when consigned to working (or playing) on the sofa.
It may sound clichéd, but the Cyworx really has changed the way I work.
Price
(Image credit: Future / Erlingur Einarsson)
At the time of writing this, the Couchmaster Cyworx costs $149.90 in the US and £129 in the UK, although discounts tend to be available around big sales events. If you can wait, I'd recommend waiting for a deal event where you can expect to see the price drop to just over $/£100.
Who is it for?
Hybrid workers who don't have space for a full desk setup at home
(Image credit: Future / Erlingur Einarsson)
Buy it if...
You work from a couch or sofa a lot
Don't buy it if...
You already have a nice home-office setup or a standing desk
And you don't have to share access to it
The Verdict
8
out of 10
Couchmaster CYWORX
The Couchmaster Cyworx aims to fix a problem that has burst into the open as more people work from home; sitting with a laptop on your sofa gets real painful real fast. Enter the Cyworx, a beautifully designed bamboo-made mini-desk, with a mouse mat, tablet notch, pouches for your peripherals, supporting side cushions and cooling slits for your laptop all included. The Cyworx is certainly a big upgrade on those tiny lap trays (and most definitely my own previous solution, a cushion), but if your sofa is too shallow, it will tip over, and if it's too deep, getting back up will make you look less than dignified...
Erlingur is the Tech Reviews Editor on Creative Bloq. Having worked on magazines devoted to Photoshop, films, history, and science for over 15 years, as well as working on Digital Camera World and Top Ten Reviews in more recent times, Erlingur has developed a passion for finding tech that helps people do their job, whatever it may be. He loves putting things to the test and seeing if they're all hyped up to be, to make sure people are getting what they're promised. Still can't get his wifi-only printer to connect to his computer.
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