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USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness - Dennis Schubert (overengineer.dev)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/technology

171 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I was looking for a new USB-c hub and came across this article. It's an interesting write-up of what is on the inside of some popular options

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[–] asap 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I have one of these and it is amazing:

https://tobenone.com/products/15-in-1-tobenone-usb-c-docking-station-dual-monitor-dock-with-150w-power-adapter-uds032

Highly recommend for a fixed workstation docking station.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Great that it works for you, but this dock has many of the same issues I'm describing in my post. Outputting to two displays uses MST, so it simply won't work under macOS (except for cloning the image). Ethernet is internally connected via USB instead of PCIe.

Note that all USB 3.1/3.2/(whatever, fuck USB naming) docks have these problems, but Thunderbolt 4 docks can - in theory - do better.

[–] asap 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

That's a Windows dock - you'll want to look at their Mac series for the Mac/Thunderbolt ones:

https://tobenone.com/collections/for-mac

The reviews on Amazon seem to indicate that Mac people are running 2 displays without issues from these docks. I can see that there are 2x DisplayPort options on their site.

I'm running dual 4K monitors from mine. Not using ethernet so can't comment on that. I have no issues with the audio jack output, works perfectly and very low latency with Asio4All. It's really neat to set my laptop down and plug in a single cable to both charge the laptop and output all the ports.

edit: Looks like they have some docks specifically for M1/M2 Macs to allow dual displays:

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Their Docks with dual display out for Mac either use two USB-C ports to the device or use DisplayLink, which is a whole other story. While it's true that the normal M1/M2 only support one external display, the Pro variants support two, and the Max variants up to four (which is impossible via a single cable though).

And that's alright, as (single) USB-C 3.x docks can't support two independent DisplayPort streams. Proper Thunderbolt 4 docks could very well though.

Also, docks for Mac or not, if it's USB, it's probably the same Realtek Ethernet chip the guy in the article linked by OP is talking about. And that has its own host of issues.

[–] asap 1 points 1 year ago

That's very interesting. I have been contemplating switching to Mac recently, and it's a bit surprising to hear something that Windows can apparently do better. Thanks for the info.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

FWIW, I have no issue with the CalDigit TS3 Plus dock, although since I have an M1 that doesn’t allow dual external displays anyway, I can’t test that.

Actually nvm, I do have issue. I gave up trying to connect the external monitor to that dock and instead connect it separately. I forgot why I do this, though, to be honest … I had some issue with it IIRC

Edit: I just tried connecting the display through the dock again, and it works without issue; perhaps something changed since the last time I tried (OS version, for one; it might have also been my old work laptop that had the issue, and I simply just wanted to use the same setup for both)

Edit 2: Ah, this is the issue, and it's subtle! If I use the CalDigit dock to connect the (5K) display, it is, for some reason, very subtly but definitively blurry. However, connecting directly to its own Thunderbolt port on the laptop makes it clear.

[–] asap 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I posted the links for someone else, but looks like Tobenone have some docks specifically for M1/M2 Macs to allow dual displays:

Note: no idea if this works or not. I suggest looking for reviews

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Cool, thanks. Well, my solution of just connecting two thunderbolts (the monitor, and everything else (the dock)) is fine for me now, so I'm not going to purchase those until I get around to purchasing an M2. At that point, I will be interested, too, in what works.