Scottish developer Concrete Reality has been hard at work trying to create a solution for messy, rigid workspaces. Their Hypnos Desk Mat was designed to level up desk space, whether that’s used for gaming or work-from-home situations.
The Hypnos Desk Mat seems to have been specifically designed for deep, messy desks. You might know the kind: cables hanging off the back of it, several mousemats littered around it, propping up keyboards or mice. These types of desks often need structure and some sort of way to divide up the area, which is why this mat has been created. It’s packed full of features, from the runway along the back through to the included elbow and wrist rests.
The desk mat isn’t small, which is both a pro and a con. Coming in at 80cm long, and 50cm wide it’s actually wider than most of the desks that we’ve got at home, which made this review quite tricky to write. That and the rigid cable runways cannot be removed or flattened, and double as a wall along the back of the mat. That wall, on a standard, IKEA desk, doesn’t leave enough room for the mat to fit onto the desk alongside the screen stands. Our three types of desks, two of which are from IKEA and the third being a gaming battle desk, had no room for moniters. We found that the bases for our monitors did not fit onto the mat itself, but also could not be placed behind it. If we placed our monitors onto the mat, we found that there was no room for a keyboard or a mouse.
However, if you do have a desk that it will fit on then you’re in luck, as you can just place the monitors behind the mat. The mat surface is a firm foam that’s almost frictionless to move a mouse across, and the cushions are equally comforting. They provide a lot of support for your wrists, which is a really important feature when it comes to sitting at a desk for a long amount of time.
The runways are where it’s interesting, as a sort of organisational tool. The back is split into two polymer runways, each one open on the end (and, as such, creating a gap in the middle), one hole on the front and three on the back. Keyboard and mouse cables can go in through the front holes and then come out through any of the six back — or four side — guide holes to then be squirrelled away down the back of the desk. This can help you manage your cables and attempt to tell which cables are which. Cable management is always a battle, so having a good system can be really helpful, especially if you have the room.
Though we won’t be able to use the Hypnos Desk Mat on our own desks, if you have a lot of space and are looking for something that can help you organise, support your wrists, and just looks cool, then it’s worth taking a look at this mat.
You can find the Hypnos Desk Mat on their website.
