Always hit the wrong buttons on your monitor? Try this hack

Chances are, if a monitor sits on your desk, more than one device is plugged into it. Maybe your setup is a personal PC and a work laptop, or a computer plus a gaming console. Perhaps it’s all of the above. (Yes, I do live at my desk, thank you.)

Living this way can come with one small hassle, though—switching between device inputs can be hard on some monitors. I’m stuck going between a couple of buttons to get to the input menu, then selecting the correct one. No nice monitor with dedicated buttons for each input port. (Seriously, that’s a quality of life feature worth paying for.) But I found a better way. 

The solution that took me way too many months to arrive at? I stuck something on my display’s bezel, right over the buttons I need.

Alaina Yee / Foundry

Tape, stickers, editor’s flags—the world was my label oyster. I’m currently honoring my roots in print publishing with two leftover editor’s tabs (we used these to keep track of page printouts during production), but I’m considering a move to stickers for better adhesion. I know a young kid who’ll have plenty of options for me to choose from. A spot of painter’s tape or even Scotch tape would work, too.

Yeah, I know most modern displays auto-switch between devices if only one system is turned on, but that doesn’t always happen for me. Sometimes I have multiple PCs turned on, too. I also could try to hone my depth perception so that I stop inevitably hitting the button that turns off the monitor instead of the one that finalizes the input selection. (Insert skull emoji here.)

The Registi / Unsplash

Or I could just buy an HDMI switcher or a KVM switch, but look, I’m cheap. Also, switchers sometimes have their own quirks to deal with, which I once learned the hard way during a sweaty Overwatch match. Sorry to my teammates, I was literally playing with my monitor off for a bit. (Insert multiple skull emojis here.)

Anyway, I’m aware this is one of those “hacks” where if you naturally think of things like this, it’s a no-brainer. I grew up in a home where I would have caught major trouble if I gummed up a monitor bezel with adhesives, so it’s not my first instinct. (In fairness, back then, they could ruin surfaces.) But these days, it’s pretty easy to remove and clean up any residue if you eventually upgrade and want to give or sell your existing monitor to someone else.

Also, I’m a full adult now, so if I want to gunk up my monitor bezel, I can.