I have a USB-C hub for my Macbook which isn't any of these (it's a "VMade") but looks exactly the same.
It's a heap of crap. (Or, at least, the conjunction of it and Monterey is a heap of crap.) If I leave it plugged in when the Mac goes to sleep, eventually the Mac will kernel panic and force a restart. The ethernet just randomly dies, such that I now run the Mac permanently off wifi even though I have a superb fibre connection. The USB connections do at least work, but that's about all I can say of it.
I didn’t realize that they were just another one of those rebranding companies. I thought people ripped off Anker, rather than the competition and Anker pulling from some other common source.
FWIW I compared CE-Link and Anker's websites and at least the power bank and charging block sections didn't seem to be rebranded. Yes, they sell the same type of products, but the design (location of buttons, ports, etc) seems be different. I only took a quick look though so I could have missed more.
They have been using "Apple" style packaging (nice "unboxing experience" kind of boxes) and include slogans like "americas favorite charging brand" (the broken english on their website doesn't reassure me) on recent products I've bought from them, so they are certainly trying to make a brand for themselves as being above the standard junk you can find on Amazon, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was rebranded.
They are not great. I had a USB-C adapter of theirs years ago. While the adapter itself worked pretty ok (besides only supporting 4k@30Hz), it was so badly shielded that it would reliably drop any Bluetooth or WiFi connection in its vicinity. I browsed through the Amazon reviews and it turned out that there were many people with the same issues (and also later USB-C adapters).
I know that USB-C can cause interference on Bluetooth/WiFi bands, but this was never an issue with properly shielded adapters.
I had this issue too. I switched to a dell monitor that used USB-C for video and then plugged my other useful devices into the monitor. I have two other monitors that use USB-C too, but I opted for a DVI to USB-C for the two monitors. I still have two available USB-C ports and if I'm in a bind I use one of these crap adapters via USB-C but that hasn't happened in quite some time.
If you use a laptop with an external monitor, a better idea is to get a premium monitor which handles charging, video, and data transfer of USB devices connected to the monitor for you. This allowed me to get rid off the wonky USBC hubs, but before my employer got me a Dell monitor I didn't know that a single USBC connection can deliver all three.
> If you use a laptop with an external monitor, a better idea is to get a premium monitor which handles charging, video, and data transfer of USB devices connected to the monitor for you.
I made this mistake, and I ended up with a grossly overpriced monitor which fails to charge a MacBook Pro and whose video through USBC support is hit-and-miss, in the sense that it doesn't always work.
> Look for monitors which advertise thunderbolt and a charging wattage.
I have no idea what led you to believe that someone searching for monitors that charge MacBook pros with thunderbolt did not checked if the monitor charged MacBook pros with thunderbolt.
I went this route. I have a supposedly good Dell monitor where one of my devices will connect via video but not recognize attached USB devices 4 out of 5 times so I need to plug and unplug a bunch of times every day. It can take over 15 attempts on a bad day. Never again.
I've been using a Dell U38118DW monitor for maybe 8 months[ed: purchased it in July 2020 so closer to 20 months!] now and quite content with it. It has an internal USB hub that can be switched between two USB-3a and USB-C depending on which display input is active. I have my desktop attached to one of the 3a and HDMI, and can plug my frame.work laptop in to the USB-C to get 60hz Display Port alt-mode, charging, and all the usb peripherals swapping over.
though of course my laptop's intel GPU + mesa drivers tears drawing to the screen, but i generally don't care and don't watch video or play games on the laptop
That is also a model I've looked at very closely. Good to know that it can do that!
Currently I have a 34" 3440 x 1440, and with two separate docking stations (one for each laptop) and a USB hub for my peripherals that is connected to both docking stations. It's a lot of extra mess on my desk that ideally I would like to cleanup with having everything connect directly to the monitor.
BTW, how is the resolution on the 40"? Can you use it with native resolution, or do you have to do any scaling? Having all of that extra screen real estate would be awesome
I use a different monitor but can confirm PBP is great for using multiple computers.
For most peripherals, there are software solutions. I ditched any kind of KVM, and my monitor does not have USB ports. However, I use my monitor to switch inputs and use barrier to use the same keyboard and mouse on multiple systems (up to four). It works well and when traveling I also use it to work on my work laptop, with my personal laptop off to the side for reference materials, calendar etc.
These are great if you just have a laptop. I use the Dell S2719DC and I love being able to just get everything by plugging in one cable. However, I switch between a laptop and desktop, so I wound up buying a separate USB switch for peripherals, and it gets kinda confusing:
KB/mouse -> switch -> desktop/monitor
Monitor <-> laptop (usb-c)
Desktop -> monitor (HDMI)
The downsides are that it only supports 45W charging, and you can't really use dual monitors.
Ideally I could use a KVM so everything is switched in one device. But USB switching is cheap and reliable (my switch cost $25 and has been rock solid), whereas the cheapest KVM I could find to do this cost $150, doesn't support 144hz, is stuck on hdmi 2.0, etc.
I switched to a 32:9 ultra wide instead of 2 monitors and it really works nicely for having multiple computers. Like you, I also use the monitor itself to switch inputs. I use software (barrier) instead of a KVM though.
Depending on my needs I can run one of my computers using the full width, or run 2 at half width each.
My experience is similar. I also "burned out" a couple of USB-C hubs (including a very similar Anker branded unit) so eventually upgraded to a decent monitor with integrated USB-C hub. Being able to switch between all the laptops in our household and my PC with only one cable has been really great. Although, we often find our Apple laptops have problems recognising the connected devices so we have to connect and re-connect a few times to ensure everything is working as it should. No such problems with the PC!
This is the real life hack, no more dongles nor docking stations, but all of the benefits of just having to plug in 1 cable.
This route doesn't have to be expensive either, my 1440p, 27 inch Philips docking monitor cost $270, basically the price of mediocre level docking station.
One of the biggest reasons that I went through the trouble of switching to a Surface Book 3 + Surface Dock 2 was to make _damn sure_ that my desk docking station setup worked well. (Plus, I'm a sucker for the Surface Magsafe-ripoff connector.)
I'm running a Dell 27" 4K monitor and a ViewSonic 15" portable 1080p monitor along with the internal display full-time, with both external displays plugged in via USB-C on the Surface dock; and it's been reasonably reliable.
I don't have any other USB-C peripherals plugged in to the dock, and I haven't tried a fourth display; but so far, so good, no complaints.
If you want a decent dock you have to spend a bit of money. I went through this pain before accepting the cost and buying a CalDigit Thunderbolt 4 Element Hub[1]. Run's two 4k displays at 60Hz, any peripheral and charges my laptop.
For everyone under 40, there was a shaver ad that flooded the airwaves of our youth where some guy (Victor) would say, "I liked it so much I bought the company".
It is missing Ethernet, which seems to be important to the author.
Having heard positive things about caldigit, I got their USB-C Pro Dock and I get frequent screen blanking with my M1 Mac, and often some of the USB ports fail to work. I don't use the ethernet port, but I think it is a Realtek (so likely the same thing the author is complaining about)
I have spoken to caldigit support and so far they have replaced the dock once, and now have gone pretty quiet.
The screen blanking with M1 was driving me crazy. I went through untold amount of cables, and ended up with miniDP (on the dock) to DP (on the monitor) that doesn't blank, but only flickers occasionally.
The funny thing is that 2015 Intel MBP (with Apple TB2->TB3 adapter) with the same dock and same monitor didn't blank or flicker. I guess it is something about the new Apple TB implementation in M1.
Their TS3 dock supports ethernet. I've had mine for well over 3 years now and it still works great. Can't say the same for the 5+ other docks I had before this one.
I’ve got the TS 3 Plus dock (which has Ethernet) and it has been working flawlessly on my 2020 MBP (Intel) the entire time. I _think_ there was a firmware update in the early days that unlocked the 85 or 90 watt charging. I had heartburn about the price, but it’s been worth every penny.
I’m not pushing 4K though, so mileage may vary. I’ve got a 27” TB2 Apple Cinema Display via TB2 to USB-C and a Dell via Display port.
As a guy working with Raspberry Pi and 3D printers a lot in my free time it is SO NICE to have the card reader right up front and easy to access. I also love un/plugging just one cord when I’m on the go.
I have the TS3. It's been great BUT.... the Mac has not been great with it in the following ways.
(1) I keep my MBP closed. It take 10-30 seconds for it to wake up on keypress. That's so long that I often have no way to tell if it noticed I pressed key.
(2) If XCode is debugging and the screen sleeps then MacOS 12 never recovers unless I disconnect the cable, open the lid, get it wake up on the laptop monitor, and then plug it back in and finally close the lid.
I get why #2 is rare and therefore not fixed but still (T_T)
Yeah, I kept running into docking problems trying to keep the lid closed as well. It seemed like it worked less than half the time. Worst-case I'd have to restart. Sometimes it'd wake up with no mouse or kbd working, other times my dual 4K60 monitors would be switched left/right, many times just...nothing...
Pretty lame that one of the "best" laptop mfgs in the world can't make docks work right with one of the biggest CPU / IP mfgs in the world. Laptop sleep states were a problem back in the early 90s on Linux...some things really never change.
By the way, there were bad problems with the TS3+, Intel MacBook Pro 13" 2020 and macOS 12.2 (no USB or Ethernet until reboot after unplugging and re-plugging), which were fixed in 12.3.
I'm using OWC TB3 dock, it has the same (1) problem. In the past, I've used Kanex TB2 dock and it was the same.
So for the feedback on keypress, I'm using devices with backlight. Both keyboard or mouse work fine, once they light up, you know that it is waking up.
I've had my ts3 for a couple years now. I just noticed a pretty bad coil whine on mine lately. I'm not sure if it's always been there and my environment's changed or the device just suddenly started making the noise.
That sounds like exactly the issue I've just described when I plug a USB C display into mine. I actually notice it, albeit to a much lesser degree, when I move a USB mouse connected to the dock.
So, this is really random, but if you can open up the case and figure out what is whining, folding up tinfoil neatly in half about a dozen times will make a really effective shield and cut like 95% of the whine. I found out about this trick from an open-source synth (PreenFM 2, incredible little frequency modulation synth) that had some whine due to the display. Sticking the thick piece of tinfoil between the display and the PCB boosted the SNR an almost unbelievable amount. Give it a shot, it only costs time and tinfoil! Be sure to stick some electrical tape around anything it might contact though, so you don't short anything out.
I'm running a CalDigit Connect 10G on a relatively high-end NUC and it's great for a quick little Plex box that also sits on my 10G network segment next to a TrueNAS box doing 2x10G on DAC cables with LACP on a Chelsio T6225-CR.
I had bad luck with the QNAP QNA-T310G1S and Sonnet Solo 10G SFP+ (surprising as their stuff is usually rock-solid) -- both based on the AQC100S chipset and the aQuantia AQtion driver just didn't work for me under LTS Ubuntu.
I got a thunderbolt 4 dock from Razer[0] that has all the bits and bobs (and it looks really nice). Almost bankrupted me, but as the GP says, this is just the reality at this point.
The port arrangement on the front/back of that looks identical to the Kensington and Sonnet docks mentioned upthread, so I'd suspect that Razer are another vendor of a skinned reference design. (Though they're on the cheaper end of the spectrum so far, unless someone turns up the Aliexpress version.)
For the sake of anecdata, I have a CalDigit TB3 dock that's been working reasonably well for a few years now, which is actually pretty high praise given the competition, and I'll probably stick with CD when I get around to replacing it.
That's USB 2 though - it's literally a USB-A hub with the connector swapped for a USB-C one. This speaks volumes about the beauty of USB 2.0 and the USB-A specs that they withstood decades of unscrupulous manufacturers; they're so simple that it's literally more effort to screw it up than to do it properly, so even the cheapest option will typically work.
Those Dell ones that come with the XPS caused us endless problems at work. Higher res screens would just not work properly. The only one that consistently just worked was the apple HDMI/USB-A/USB-C charging dongle.
Sounds to me that you for some reason got the older USB-C 3.1 / Gen 1 docks those are limited to 5gbps which means no 4K@60 the Gen 2 USB-C / TB3 docks work quite flawlessly as long as you ofc plug them into a Gen 2 or TB port…
With USB->DP adapter yes. With a hub offering USB3 ports, mostly no. Once both lanes are in DP-alternate mode (needed for 4k@60), there's no bandwidth for USB3, only the separate wire for USB2. So here it depends how it is internally connected, and whether it can switch USB3 ports to USB2 or not. Many hubs can't do this.
I've been running an Intel MacBook Pro (last intel version I think) on it the last few months with 2 external HP displays, keyboard, mouse, and it is a solid performer.
Yes, those displaylink docks are fine for office productivity work, but not that suitable for gaming or media consumption because of the cpu load. On the other hand, I plugged my m1 air into one at work and the cpu load was reasonable even while videoconferencing, so I suppose eventually the overhead of displaylink gets small enough not to be a problem.
As another commenter stated, bleh to DisplayLink.
Also, what monster designed it so 1! of the 4 USB-A ports is upside down? This is why we cannot have nice things.
I ended up getting a Lenovo USB-C Gen 2 hub a couple of years ago, and it’s still on sale. Also very satisfied.
I’m able to switch my personal (Lenovo) and work (Dell) laptops, mostly without issue. I say without issue because the Dell/Intel only supports HBM2 so won’t do two monitors if one of them is more than 1080p.
I settled on using the HDMI out from the laptop to split the difference in frustration and convenience.
I ended up getting a Lenovo USB-C Gen 2 hub a couple of years ago,
It works fine on ThinkPads. Unless you are using Linux, where 4k@60Hz does not work due to lane misconfiguration (maybe this is fixed by now?). On Macs, I have found this Dock to be a complete disaster. It would often not charge unless you plug/unplug the Dock several times. Also Ethernet often doesn't work (it uses a Realtek NIC). I had two and sold both of them, because they are practically unusable with Macs, and replaced them by Startech Thunderbolt 3 Docks, which work great.
There have been a couple of firmware updates over my couple years of ownership. I had a couple of issues with the dock simply not connecting to the non-Lenovo computer, but this was fixed with the fw update early last year.
These issues were with the firmware updates early last year (I think the last update I tried was from April 2021). I see that they finally provided a new firmware update March this year. Too late \o/.
For the sake of anecdata, I found that even the Caldigit docks fail to work on the Intel Macbook Pros (I only have a single data point about the M1s and they didn't work there either). When I hook even basic things like my keyboard and mouse up to the USB A ports, things work for about 20 minutes or so (varies widely) and then the USB A ports go dead requiring a reboot to restore.
This is a known failure mode, but it doesn't hit everybody. It is solely an Apple software fault as older OSs do not exhibit it. I really wish I knew what the issue was.
On the plus side, I found this so infuriating that I finally threw all in and switched to Linux full-time (Lenovo X1 Carbon with a ThinkPad dock) and haven't looked back since.
Side note: practically every thunderbolt dock I have works fine with every x86 laptop I have running either Windows or Linux (including the Caldigit!). YMMV.
My entire team and a few other developers I work with have had zero issues with CalDigit TS3 on Intel Macs. At least 10 TS3s over the period of several years.
I don't like the idea of having to chain multiple dongles(I know the advantages, being able to choose a good network adapter, etc.) but I'd still pay decent money for a single device that I can leave on my desk with everything plugged in without the need for additional interconnects. (I do see that they make actual hubs as well, might check those out.)
CalDigit's TS3, TS3 Plus, and now the TS4 are all incredible products.
I have used them with my MacBooks over the years as well as my gaming PC (ASUS ProArt B550 motherboard), and they are the most reliable part of my desktop setup. They are not just reliable, but reliably fast. I get full gigabit ethernet speed, fast USB transfer speeds, and fast SD card reading, without fail, every time.
I’d just like to chime in with the Kensington SD5700T [1]. I’ve tried a CalDigit TS3 Plus, an Anker PowerExpand 13-in-1, and the Kensington has by far been the most reliable.
It doesn’t have built-in HDMI/DisplayPort out, but it’s easy to buy the appropriate cable to connect to your monitor (I recommend Club3D [2]). Especially if you’re trying to use an HDMI 2.1 or DisplayPort 1.4 display, as I’ve found most built-in ports on these hubs don’t support these latest standards or have weird issues with them.
It also has a nice mounting bracket [3] that lets you hide the cable mess under your desk or behind your monitor.
Can second this recommendation for an M1 Pro MBP. Expensive, but I've been very happy with mine. A single cable in and out of my laptop to cover power (at a full 95W) plus monitors, USB-A peripherals, network, and everything else, super amazing.
I've had really bad luck with TB3 docks including the OWC and CalDigit. It seems that having a stiff TB cable on a non-locking port isn't that great of an idea. I ended up rigging up some cardboard and lots of tape to reinforce and stabilize the dock side of the connection on the OWC, and connecting to it would work only about half the time, and even then my dual external monitors would usually be swapped L/R.
The best solution to this I've seen is on Angelbird’s SD Dual Card Reader which uses a sadly proprietary shaped molded USB-C connector that goes DEEP into the reader, but it is very snug and wiggle-proof. I haven't tried, but I'm confident that I could swing this thing around by the cable and not hurt it or have it disconnect at all. It really does feel like the piece of pro-level kit that would be at home on a DIT cart like it was designed for.
The Lenovo TB3 Workstation dock worked relatively well for docking an X1 Extreme, and that too has a proprietary connector which combines Lenovo's charging plug with a TB3 connector. It's secure and doesn't wiggle much, but it's short and flexible but not terribly so (large bend radius).
Lastly, I'd just like to complain about how lame it is that there are so few docks with >1 HDMI or [preferably] DP connectors. On the OWC dock, I was literally using 1x MiniDP to DP adapter cable for one monitor, then a USB-C DP alt-mode dongle plugged into HDMI to the other monitor. Plugging a dongle into a dock is serious product-level cringe. Surely I'm not the only person in the world who wants to close their workstation-class laptop and use it with dual 4K60 32" monitors, yet there seem to be so few products that work like that. I don't want to dasiy-chain one over TB either. I understand the bandwidth limitations and hope that TB4 makes this an easier sell.
My Ideal TB4 dock:
- LOCKING connector, somehow. Build a cage around it like they do for some IECs or mold in a deep strain relief or something.
- 3X DisplayPort 2.0 (since they lock, unlike almost all HDMI that isn't on rackmount pro gear that news stations have)...DP 2.0 has been out since 26 June 2019.
- 25G SFP slot that can take a 10GbE GBIC, DAC, or fiber. I'd settle for 10G SFP.
- 2x downstream TB4 ports that can fall back to USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (ugh, really not a fan of USB IF naming conventions)
- 4x USB 2.0 type A on a hub to plug in all the stuff that doesn't need much bandwidth, like keyboards / mice / phone charger / bluetooth dongle / YubiKey.
- 2x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type A ports for fastish devices like external HDDs that came out before Type C.
- Pass through the entire 100W and make that actually work with MacBooks. I've plugged into so many docks that can't actually charge the larger MBPs. They'll give 45w or something, which doesn't cut it for MBPs, let alone mobile workstation class laptops. 100W would at least keep a laptop with a 45W TDP CPU and at least as powerful GPU afloat. I'm talking about stuff that comes with 200w+ power bricks here. I don't mind terribly plugging in the power adapter separately, just don't make me do what Lenovo did and plug TWO POWER BRICKS INTO THE DOCK. That's a bit much.
- No damn 3.5mm headphone + mic jacks (extra audio chipset that is inevitably worse than the one built in and much much worse than a proper external pro interface), built-in wifi, bluetooth, built-in m.2 / 2.5" SSD...I love the SD card reader personally but make it a damn good fast one or just give me another couple of USB ports instead.
The closest I can get to this today is the Lenovo workstation dock, which they now make in a TB4 flavor featuring:
1 x 3.5mm Audio combo Jack
4 x USB-A
1 x USB-C
1 x HDMI 2.1
2 x Displayport 1.4
1 x RJ45 (gigabit)
1 x Thunderbolt (for Host connect)
1 x Thunderbolt (for Device connect)
Although this solution doesn't really solve any of the fundamental issues with cable rigidity and easy to unplug usb-c/tb ports or the continuous "add another abstraction layer" problems of the ever expanding complexity of do everything on a single cable standard, OWC sells a ClingOn adhesive backed usb-c/tb lockable connector which prevents my cables from unplugging constantly when the wind blows and triggering the "why the hell does my accessory not work oh it's unplugged loop". For a mere $5 each!
I did see those a while ago! They sadly weren't out when I got the original TB3 dock from them when that first came out, so no idea how well they work, but seems like they might help. IIRC the dock itself tended to generate a fair bit of heat, so I wonder how well that adhesive really holds up. It'd be great if this was just built into the dock, maybe removable in some way if one wanted to use a TB3 cable that didn't fit.
As has often been said, that dock really is a computer.
I don't think that's a good thing though. No adapter/hub should be this complex IMO. I don't know how the ubiquity of USB got us to this point, it seems worse than before.
Because it's not USB it's Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt taps directly into the PCIe bus where USB doesn't. It only makes sense it is going to be much more than just a USB switch/hub. It's basically one of those PCIe expansion chasis that allowed extra expansion cards when your case only had 3 slots. Except, this is a nice neat little box on top of your desk.
Which is great on the road. When I'm in the office using my laptop as a desktop I want one plug for everything and that is what usb-c gives me, so it is easy to grab just the laptop and go. (On my current laptop it is two usb-c plugs on one connector as usb-c doesn't allow enough power or data for one port to work - I have to use their official hub which who knows how long they will make).
Made-up problem? Maybe if you use your laptop as a desktop and never take it anywhere. I don’t want to plug in a dozen cables whenever I come home or go to work, or after each and every meeting.
I have a Dell Latitude laptop. It absolutely doesn't have enough video ports for the monitors on my desk. And while it's got enough ports for my USB peripherals (barely), it's certainly a lot more convenient to connect one cable than to connect 5-6, when I bring it back from using it as a laptop.
Yeah, after buying a macbook pro I decided to buy an earlier generation of macbook air with some usable ports on it, there is no way I'm going to go around with an additional box. People complain MS is user-hostile but Apple does the same, just in their own way.
I’d like to chime in to highlight how totally underrated the Blackmagic eGPU series Apple collaborated on was.
They are virtually silent, have capable, reliable TB3 hubs. Outside the Mac Pro line, the BM eGPUs offered graphics capability to macs going back years that was only surpassed with the recent ASi MBPs.
They are remarkably stable and ultimately a great value.
Strongly agree with this! I have the now discontinued eGPU Pro and it rocks. Is normally completely silent and it functions as an actual thunderbolt dock. It’s one of the few eGGUa with a secondary thunderbolt port you can use with a Thunderbolt monitor. (It also supports USB-PD for fast charging an iPad). Half the USB-A ports are 5 Gb/s. I do wish it had etherneT though.
I also recommend the TS3 Plus, though it’s not as rock solid. Mine sometimes has a high frequency noise issue when the DP port is in use, though your resolution changes the hum’s volume. Also it freezes up occasionally, but I used it for 2 years without many troubles.
As I was scrolling through the article, I was hoping to see the TS3 amongst the docks torn down.
I was happy with mine until I started using an extra display with it recently. The main display is hooked up via DisplayPort. The problem arose when I added a second display over USB C.
For some reason, when I plug the monitor into the dock, there's a faint electrical noise. If I plug the monitor into a USB C port on the laptop instead, it's perfectly quiet. Maybe I should attempt HDMI instead. Either way it's frustrating.
Yup when you see both the price and the size of these docks, you gotta wonder why even bother with buying a laptop in the first place. If the goal is to hook up two 4K monitors, I'd rather have, say, a desktop computer powered by a threadripper.
And good luck getting anything close to RTX 3090Ti performance in a laptop. It'd basically be a toasted oven on your lap.
Desktops can just sink a ton more heat, and as process shrinks and die size increases have gotten us less and less additional performance each year, we're just pushing power up to the point now where a TOTL gaming desktop is pulling close to 1KW. A laptop will never come close. If you really do want to try a literal desktop CPU in a laptop, there are mfgs like Eurocom and Sager that will sell you one, just don't expect it not to throttle a lot under actual heavy workloads.
To be honest I see this as a win for laptops nowadays. I still work from home most days of the week and I prefer not to have a power hungry workstation turned on all day, especially with current electricity prices. Because of unfortunate timing of when my contract expired I already pay around 800 euros per month for energy
>>Because of unfortunate timing of when my contract expired I already pay around 800 euros per month for energy
Wait, what? Are you like cryptomining or something? That's actually insane. I charge two electric cars at home, work from home using a powerful workstation, and my electricity is about £100/month. How do you manage to spend 800 euro a month????
Curious where you are? I run a threadripper workstation with a 3070Ti and 2x 1440p monitors for ~10 hours per day, and my household's electricity bill is ~£40/month.
> why even bother with buying a laptop in the first place. If the goal is to hook up two 4K monitors
That might not be a full-time goal. Some want a machine that works on the move but can be expanded to bigger screens and such when at certain locations (office and/or home). A laptop and dock allow this compromise.
It is a compromise, not one suitable for all. But it is the list inconvenient option for many.
> Some want a machine that works on the move but can be expanded to bigger screens and such when at certain locations
I wouldn't say "some". Probably 90% of developers I know require exactly this, in fact off the top of my head I can't think of any who don't. Even the permanent, full-remote, no-really-there-is-literally-no-office types want to sit in a different room sometimes or work from a coffee shop.
It's pretty rare to have a "workstation" setup that cannot be moved.
Personally I like having a laptop for on the go and a desktop that’s always in one place and use syncing to make it pretty seemless to switch between them.
That's a good solution, but it comes with its own set of compromises. I think the argument here really is:
'... where we came in. Having to buy an external dock is such a compromise! I want to have all the ports on my laptop!'
'But if all your peripherals are connected directly, you need to connect and disconnect them every time, so you have to compromise on mobility. Isn't this...'
I guess I'm one of those devs that you can't think of then. Main rig for remote work at home, laptop for the occasional trip to the lab. Honestly I can't imagine using a laptop for anything too demanding, the shitty thermals make me cringe.
Well, I mean, 2 4k monitors is possible on a laptop in laptop configuration these days (4k internal + 4k add-on attached slide-out), so I don't see why it's an unreasonable thing to have where you dock a laptop.
Sure, you could buy a separate desktop for that, but if you also go portable, don't want to bother with some kind of online sync solution, and want to move between laptop mode for on the go and something docked to big monitors and a no laptop keyboard/mouse for when you are at your primary workspace, getting a good laptop plus a dock rather than spending more for a laptop plus a separate desktop which makes you have to compromise on syncing somehow makes a lot of sense.
(Obviously, if you need desktop processing power, thermal envelopes mean that laptops aren't going to be competitive. But if that's your need, you aren't going to be looking at laptops, and how to connect peripherals isn't going to be your limiting factor.)
Yes, but companies keep wanting me to use the corporate laptop, not my much more capable desktop on a dedicated drive. So technically a good dock is not a bad investment in that scenario since you aren't paying for the laptop.
Presumably people have a dedicated workstation that they use most of the time, but not infrequently want to have a portable computer that they can take places (cafes/trips/transport/co-working spaces/etc).
I find it surprising that the appeal of the above would be confusing for anyone.
I have multiple desks. Each of them has their own docking station.
The only things that move around are my laptop and I. I don't want to carry around a desktop computer and plug in power, screens, and USB hub every time I switch desks.
I get around this by using a desktop computer. I appreciate without wanting the engineering that goes into modern laptops; but they're solving for a problem that I just don't have.
USB remains, of course, a donkey circus. Everyone involved in USB ought to be ashamed of themselves.
I'm not denying your application need, but I only plug in power and sometimes an external monitor. I don't think I've plugged anything else into my computer in years.
So it might be lunacy for you but it's not necessarily lunacy for others. And given the amount of market research these guys do I suspect the "never plug anything else in" crowd is pretty significant.
I’m with you on this. I’m a FAANG software engineer who does hardware stuff too and I have a 2020 MacBook Air with 2 (two!) USB-C ports. One for charging, one for other stuff. In my two years of owning the device I have not once ever been frustrated needing the third port. I do quite often use both of the two ports, but even needing three seems to never happen in my use case.
I don’t use external monitors with that device which probably makes a difference but IMO the point still stands - I think there is a silent majority of people who don’t want or care about more ports.
Im a non-FAANG developer so i cant comment on what all the sheep/ad devs are doing;
but I can comment on what a polygot cross-platform cross-cloud software engineer who supports a plethora of native portable devices integrations require, and thats USB hubs with ports coming out the ye-ha - otherwise im constantly playing musical chairs.
I commented that I didn’t have a need a lot of ports with my use case and you commented that you did with yours. Good HN discussion.
But why did you have to begin your comment with the condescending “all the sheep/ad devs”? It makes you look insecure and I only read beyond that because your comment was so brief.
There are machines with lots of ports and machines with few and someone’s choice of which to use is not a moral judgement.
You seriously never needed to plug in a plain common USB-A flash drive or any other peripheral? Or flash an sd card or anything of the sort? Interesting.
Nope. I pass data around over the network, either via cloud or P2P. If I plug into an external display I use BT kbd/trackpad. And I do have a waterproof/shockproof camera with an SD card but I don’t use it every day, or even every week; I use my phone.
Flash drive? Hardly ever used one; networking existed before they were invented.
Yes, but so rarely does that use case actually happen. It has been fine with a dongle and not ever been a space issue. I carry a USB-C to A dongle with me at all times wherever my laptop goes. It basically lives with the laptop. Works just fine for every use case I have and it’s often the thing taking up my second slot. A bit annoying, but a fact of life. All SD card stuff happens on my desktop - anytime I need an SD card to connect to a computer I’m always at home - I’ve never once had that requirement on the go. External keyboards just don’t get used at all - I paid a bunch of money for a nice keyboard built into my portable machine, in fact one of the reasons I purchased the 2020 MacBook Air was because they got rid of the butterfly keyboard - so I don’t really use external peripherals with it.
Because of the crazy pricing of CPUs nowadays, I'm still going old school with a slightly older ThinkPad and a ThinkPad docking station that decidedly does not connect via USB and uses a proprietary port underneath the laptop. For the most part, everything works well and has been doing so for years.
You could do it the same if you had an array of ports (as long as one of them is USB-C). You would just also have the possibility to use the other ports without a hub.
This thread is making me think there is some breed of programmer out there that has 8 work desks in their house and switches between them sequentially every 5 minutes.
While there certainly is something nice about plugging in a single cable, I just use a usb-c hub with a usb ethernet and a usb switch with my peripherals and then connect my screen directly
This is cheaper in the same way I don't use a KVM and instead change the inputs in my monitor (Also, I'd have to figure out what DP KVM supports G-Sync and 1440p 165hz).
Same here. I can’t really use a monitor that’s less that 120Hz, even for engineering work. 60Hz monitors give me eye strain.
It’s impossible to find any KVM at any price point that works with 120Hz, and certainly not 120Hz@3840x1600. Forget about G-Sync.
I resorted to just keeping short USB and DP or TB->DP cable extenders plugged into the computer ports and have a “cable zone” where I just unplug and replug all the cables to switch machines. The short extensions are to protect the ports in the machines from wearing out.
It’s way cheaper than any KVM and it actually works.
I've had good success with a 1x4 KVM from Level1Techs. I use it paired with a Alienware AW3418DW 3440x1440 120Hz G-Sync monitor. My PC has a NVIDIA 2080 and G-Sync+120Hz works fine through the KVM. I also have my MBP connected, via a CalDigit dock, and it can push 120Hz to the monitor too.
Level1Techs a small shop that I discovered via their YouTube channel. While they don't manufacturer the KVM themselves (all to common, see the OP link), they look to have done rigorous testing and compatibility analysis. They claim it works up to 3840x2160@120hz because it supports DP 1.4.
Thanks. I've heard good things about them, but they were sold out for a long time.
I actually did many days of research into assembling my own KVM. HDMI is surprisingly straightforward but DP is a nightmare of nested standards. Just one example: There is support for running i2c tunneled through another protocol. The biggest issue is the link speeds that a DP1.4 cable runs at. The chips needed to do the switching are expensive and pretty much need to be machine assembled. When you get to those frequencies the trace design and board composition even become a factor.
After all that I don't find the $299+ for a good KVM to actually be that excessive. It's surprising how difficult it is to electronically do "I unplug cable and plug another one in".
I don't even need stuff like display spoofing, etc, since I only use one machine at a time and don't constantly switch, but it was just way too much work to put together. If you only need slower link speeds it's doable.
Depends on the type of scrolling you use. Smooth scrolling feels a lot better with higher refresh rates, but obviously step-by-step scrolling doesn't really get any benefits.
The mouse is a big problem for me. I didn't used to care either, but started using a 144Hz monitor years ago and now it's hard for me to go back. Even my TV is 120Hz.
I just notice discomfort when my monitor isn't >90Hz or so. On Windows it occasionally will reset to 60Hz, maybe due to video card driver updates? I could probably re-adjust back to 60Hz in a few weeks but I don't see the point of going through the discomfort, especially when I occasionally do play games where the higher frame rate makes a much more drastic difference.
I’ve been very happy with this OWC thunderbolt dock. No monitor outputs, but as someone who is juggling so many hard drives for video/audio projects - mostly running 3-2-1 backup protocol for my salaried job AND freelance clients AND personal work - the large number of ports and wall power are critical. I had so many problems with bus powered drives drawing too much and then randomly ejecting because I have too many plugged in. This thing solved it immediately.
On my M1 Mac mini, between the OWC dock and another dongle (bus powered) and the remaining ports on the Mac, I can run 10+ drives with no problem plus multiple peripherals. That may seem excessive, but when you’re juggling between drives trying to find old projects for people or trying to build a demo reel, it speeds up the process immensely. It also enabled me to consolidate a bunch of old 1 to 3 TB drives onto a couple of master 16 TB drives with everything in front of me at once, saving a ton of time, stress, and double checking.
Frankly it’s just nice not having to unplug something two or three times a day just to be able to plug in something else. I always have an available port now and it’s got me so much better organized.
AMD is joining Intel in having Thunderbolt4/usb4 ports on their upcoming mobile chips. Would be great to have an io up alterntive part that has 4, 5, 6 or more ports.
>how hard it must be to make a “decent” thunderbolt dock.
I’d been thinking about this and want to add to the evidence that even though MacBooks were USB-C only for years and years Apple never shipped a dock they only shipped single port dongles.
No way would Apple not sell a $500-$800 dock that could “solve the usb-c problem” unless there was a good reason and I think the reason is this solution is inherently janky for some unsolvable engineering reason and only single port cables are reliable to the level Apple was happy with.
While I agree that's a great dock, IIUC, it's not technically a USB-C dock, it's a Thunderbolt dock. I know it's the same cable but IIUC it's not USB-C?
USB-C is the connector type, so yes Thunderbolt 4 uses USB-C. The transport standard is USB-[some number], current gen being USB-4 (which is actually based on the TB3 standard).
My work gave me this. I have a 2019 16” i9 MacBook that crashes in every other unplug plug of this dock. Here’s the most amazing issue with this dock yet: it somehow resets my router through the ethernet port I’m using to connect to the router. No other device has this issue. Other than this dock, nothing else causes any issue working with my router.
I went through 2 of these and finally bought generic usb C hubs and run 2x usbc->HDMI for 2x displays.
While we are recommending, I’ve been very happy with my purchase of Dell’s docking station. “Dell WD19TB Thunderbolt Docking Station”, to be specific. Works well with MBP.
It has some Windows specific features that don’t work with Apple machines. So DYOR.
I'm a huge fan of the Dell WD19TB. Works great on my MacBook Pro M1 Pro (did I mention it's for Pros) and my gaming PC. The only issue I have with it is that the PC will only run video over Thunderbolt if I use YCbCr 4:2:2 with chroma subsampling - so instead I wired my PC monitor directly to the GPU and use the WD19TB for everything else (including video on my Mac laptop over HDMI).
Gets a solid 980Mbits symmetric on the ethernet port, 90W of power delivery, etc. It's a lifesaver swapping just the one cable between my PC and laptop.
I have been using this one for years, it used to drive two 4k displays at 60 Hz. But since half a year or so, I can't get the second display to run at 60 Hz any more. I think it's a regression in the Linux kernel, but it's basically impossible to debug. A few times it suddenly did recognize it can do two displays at 60 Hz, but it seems to depend on the phase of the moon :/
I found a random USB-c monitor to be a decent hub (I used a cheap Lenovo, was great). No ethernet cable, however wifi is usually good enough, if not faster.
If it needs to be Thunderbolt and money is no object, there is the Apple Studio Display with 3 USB-C ports.
I've recently received my https://frame.work laptop (64 GB RAM 2 TB NVME) and with its expansion card system I can have 4 usb-c, or 2 usb-c and HDMI and DP on it, and if a connector fails the replacement expansion card is 10-20 EUR.
Some CalDigit docks have this fun issue where if you plug the wrong sort of adapter into the wrong sort of USB-C port it will brick the port if not the entire device on the other end.
I did the same thing, seeking a "one plug" setup with my Macbook Pro. I have a different CalDigit (the TS3+), but same conclusion: to do this right, you have to throw a little money at it.
With this dock, I was able to run:
- 2 4K monitors
- Gigabit Ethernet
- USB-A
- Audio connection for speakers
- Power
all on one USB-C cable to the laptop. It also has an SD slot and a front-facing USB-A port for thumb drives, etc.
The thunderbolt 4 element hub is causing kernel panics on M1 devices running in RAID 0. It is unnreliable and requires additional cooling to keep my mind safe.
I in fact created this account just to warn you.
I had two of them with 3 Sabrent Thunderbolt SSDs each.
So when you setup a RAID level and then copy data from A to B, it did crash for me each time. For copy I used "Carbon Copy Cloner"
In fact I go so far to say Thunderbolt is not reliable at all for 24/7 use, as it gets much hotter and currently would require active cooling to prevent throttling.
This is true, though Ethernet seems to be an endemic problem. I have a ~$300 Dell WD19TB that works flawlessly to drive a couple displays, audio out, USB hub, and card reader, but the Ethernet died after a few months.
So now, comically, I have to have a type-C Ethernet adapter connected to the back of my Thunderbolt dock...
Yeah I've been playing this game for the past two years with the MacBook Pro.
Most work fine for a minute and then after a few months seems to get cranky and some input will start failing :/
Currently using that Anker hub mentioned. Probably the best of the bunch but that's not saying much. Lots of little annoyances.
One thing I found was putting the low powered USB A devices on a smaller hub "stick" that's USB-C and daisy chained to the Anker one. This has been the most stable setup.
But usually about twice a month stability will wane I'll have to unplug everything, restart computer and then plug them all back in one by one.
It feels like Apple should have done/should do an official in-house docking system instead of outsourcing such a critical component in the overall system/value proposition.
I actually agree. Normally I'm against proprietary ports, but vendors that have done this in the past have traditionally killed a lot of birds with one stone. Both Dell and Lenovo's docking solutions are fantastic, and don't require expensive hardware to manufacture docks. As a result, you can get the full IO of your computer extended to a dock with 10+ ports for less than $30. Pretty great solution IMO.
The downside is all of the hardware ends up inside the laptop where you still pay for it and now can't upgrade it separately or reuse it with another laptop. Not that I ever remember Dell/Lenovo docks being $30 new anyways.
I remember I did receive a Dell dock complete with a spring mounted adapter for the actual laptop.
I wasn't thinking that though - I was thinking something like the ones reviewed in the article but perhaps with a Apple Thunderbolt connector to prevent them from having to support Windows PC users.
You can get e.g. a Dell PR02X (traditional docking station/port replicator) for $30 or less the last couple of years now that they aren't compatible with new models but they used to also be upwards of $100 new before that ~5 years ago. There was a similar price decrease story after the prior generation of proprietary dock was deprecated as well and you'd see the same thing if the current type-C USB/Thunderbolt docks were replaced with a new physical interface. Has nothing to do with the hardware design and everything to do with excess inventory of an old product.
There is no such thing as "Apple Thunderbolt" just "Thunderbolt". It was developed by Intel, Apple was involved early in development with Intel and first to market >10 years ago but that's it. Most Windows laptops come with Thunderbolt and both Dell/Lenovo offer Thunderbolt Docks just as much as USB-C docks. Being Thunderbolt or not has no impact on whether or not the dock will support Windows/Linux vs macOS.
And if one of the tiny wires breaks and causes a short, not only can you cause a fire but you also damage the connector in the laptop which can only be fixed by replacing the motherboard, which is more expensive than the laptop itself and not covered by warranty.
Yeah, I don't think I'd ever call it a perfect solution. FWIW though, I think most of the implementations I've seen leverage the preexisting I/O controllers on the laptop itself, which means the only added cost is whatever the proprietary docking connector costs on the BOM.
Totally agree. I keep a dock for my thinkpad t420 hooked up to 2 27" 1440p iMacs in target display mode. Pop it in, the imacs get my laptop's workspaces. I keep a dell laptop docked to my tv as a streaming box. Both of these setups give me no trouble, and all of these things were being thrown out by my university.
They do have a replacement consumer monitor in 2022 [1], but in the meantime, they were selling and supporting the LG UltraFine 5K [2].
I haven't bought the new studio display, but the Thunderbolt Display was great and the LG UltraFine 5K is, too. Used both as daily drivers (and docking stations) for years. I only haven't bought the new one because that LG one is still going strong.
Regardless: my point is that this certainly seems to be "the vision." You don't need a docking station because your monitor functions as one. If I had to guess, they probably think normal people don't want to buy a docking station and then deal with a series of poorly-integrated peripherals.
Actually they have a simple USB-C break-out adapter which has a USB-A port, an HDMI port and power-in. It works extremely well. You can connect it to a USB3.0 hub to get a lot of ports. I leave it at my office desk for day to day operation.
If you want a proper docking station, a higher end Dell monitor [0] will do with USB-C, display daisy chain and USB-PD. It'll enable single cable connectivity to anything you care, sans ethernet, which can be attached to the monitor's USB hub, if you really need.
For my mobility needs, I use a Kingston Nucleum [1] since I don't care about Ethernet, but about fast card readers. It also supports 60W USB-PD, which is ample for a MacBook Air M1. That thing is really high quality.
I don't think a MacBook Air M1 has a lot places to add ports [0]. The latest generation of MacBook Pros bring a lot of the ports back [1], so that point doesn't hold anymore.
Also, of all the MacBook Air users I know, I'm the heaviest user in terms of processor load, and given that it's the company computer, it wouldn't be my first choice for a personal MacBook (in fact, I have a personal MacBook Pro).
At the end of the day, having a featherweight computer which can do all my work related tasks and some heavier stuff and doesn't needs its charger and ports most of the time is really a spoiling thing. However, for heavy development and photographic work, nothing beats on board ports and a bigger screen.
Reporting from my MacBook Air M1, there's actually not enough thickness. The (male) plug itself is as thick as the side of the laptop. Considering the (female) socket's size & surrounding machinery, the Air needs to be at least 20% thicker to accommodate a USB-A port.
The back edge is more than twice as thick as a USB C opening, which is 2.65mm. Unless this picture is wrong, that should be visibly thicker than an A plug...
But whatever, whether it fits or not with the current molding, the laptop does not need to be thicker to fit those ports. It just needs to change the curve near the back. Look how thick the middle is between the ports it has. That's way more than enough. Thickness including screen peaks at 16mm.
> Unless this picture is wrong, that should be visibly thicker than an A plug...
Just re-measured with a USB flash drive and an actual MacBook Air M1 (which I'm actually typing this comment on), and it's not. Do you want a photograph with a caliper?
> But whatever, whether it fits or not with the current molding, the laptop does not need to be thicker to fit those ports. It just needs to change the curve near the back. Look how thick the middle is between the ports it has. That's way more than enough. Thickness including screen peaks at 16mm.
Actually, you can see in [0], there's no space to fit a full depth, full height USB-A port inside there. You need to make the machine definitely thicker to accommodate that ports, given all the shielding a USB-A port around it [1]. This is a listing for a straight port. You'll probably need a 90 degree version in a MacBook Pro, unless apple does something ingenious.
I don't understand what your first picture is supposed to show.
But let's go back to the side view you first linked. Would you really say that this distance is too shallow for a USB A port? https://i.imgur.com/OtqDMh1.png It's more than a centimeter.
The first image I shared is an underside of an M1 MacBook Air, cover removed. I attached it to show how insanely cramped inside.
The machine reaches that thickness under the keyboard. Around the middle Torx screw holding the screen hinges on the top of the image.You can of course carry the thickness like the MacBook Pros to the edge, but there are other problems.
USB-A ports are a bit thicker than the opening themselves. A proper, high quality port has some spring loaded shielding pressing towards the port opening and it flares out, Also, 90 degree ports have some distance between the port body and contacts, since you need to fix the port to the board via quite a few pins (9 pins on electronic side, plus at least two for retention, unless you clamp in down via a retainer, which needs screws, etc).
All of this "machinery" adds quite a space required to implement a USB-A port on a board. As you can see in the article itself, the hubs themselves use "through the board, unflared" ports to minimize space use as much as possible, and none of them are very slim.
The slimmest USB 3.0 hub I've seen is from Anker [0][1], which I also use almost daily. As you can see, you need to have that slack around that port. Same port on a laptop needs same amount of slack around [2][3]. My older MacBook Pro also has similar amount of slack around its USB-A ports.
All in all, a MacBook Air doesn't have the thickness and space to include that port, in its current form. We're always talking about thickness, but insertion depth is at least 15%-20% greater for USB-A too. Plus you need the depth required for supporting the pins on the plug side. That needs to be taken into account, too.
It's worth noting that the Realtek is crap, even ignoring the OSX driver situation. I have a few of the 2.5GBe dongles to make my synology speak 2.5gb/s (because a modern NAS is 2020 should have more then gigabit, but doens't because reasons). The driver in Linux is hot mess. I seem to have much more luck then some with it.
Realtek chips have been garbage since the 90s. But they have also been the cheapest option for just as long so you see them absolutely everywhere, especially with third party accessories. It is typical to see hardware errata documents several pages thick from them, if they provide support at all. Getting the drivers working well is pure masochism as you have to deal with the terrible documentation (if you have it at all) and the abysmal quality of the hardware.
But they have turned their garbage products into a multi-billion dollar company and that's all that really matters in the world of business.
Whichever chip is the cheapest is the one that every accessory maker will use. It is rare that a company can break through with a product that advertises higher quality components but at a higher price, or they end up with such a massive premium on what should be a modest increase in BoM that the value proposition still doesn't make sense.
As a sidenote this is exactly what I expected to happen as laptop manufacturers started aggressively cutting ports from their machines. You have to switch to dongles, but dongles suck and the total experience is much worse than having a laptop that is 2mm thicker.
Do you know of any alternative to the RTL8153 (1Gbe) and RTL8156 (2.5GBe) chips? The only competitors seems to be AQC111U, which appear to not be supported on ARM Macs, and AX88179 whose support appears spotty as well. Any experience with either?
A Thunderbolt dock or adapter that puts the NIC on the PCI-E bus, like Apple's Thunderbolt 2 Ethernet adapter (which annoyingly requires a Thunderbolt 2 -> 3 adapter). I know that some Thunderbolt docks also use Intel NICs, but I don't have one of these, so I cannot recommend any model.
is it just me or is Elgato Thunderbolt 3 Pro case looks pretty much exactly like Belkin Thunderbolt 3 Dock Pro case[0] (with the main difference between Belkin having a USB-C port replacing one of the USB-A ports, and the SD card reader and headphone jack being left-right swapped)? It looks the same even down to the curves and materials/colors, and even the naming is that close.
No complaints about the quality of the product btw, I have been using one myself for almost 2 years. I just found it pretty interesting that even the most recommended hub ends up potentially being just as suspect in terms of "who made it".
When work from home started, I went down this road of madness, and have a drawer full of docks that didn't work properly for my Macbook (properly is defined as works as a USB hub, connection to wired network, charges my Macbook, and lets me connect an external 4k display @ 60Hz). A Plugable Thunderbolt 3 Dock has carried me for 2 years so far.
I also have a Plugable TB3 dock. I don't know if it's the dock, or the laptop... but MacOS won't remember my monitor layout at all. Even if the computer just goes to sleep, it wakes up and forgets my monitor layout. Gotta fix it multiple times a day sometimes. Sometimes one of the monitors doesn't show up at all, and I gotta unplug and plug it back in. Sometimes doing that, the computer will actually get the proper monitor layout on like the 4th try.
Interesting. I have no issues like that. I've even changed jobs, so I'm actually on my second Macbook with this hub, and my Mac remembers window positions and monitor layouts every time (knocking on wood so I don't jinx myself). I rarely power all the way down, so usually it's usually just sleep mode for me. I am using the USB-C connection for the monitor if that makes a difference.
Also have the Pluggable tb3 dock and use 2 external monitors via it (+ another separate monitor).
What you described sometimes happens to me too, but definitely not multiple times a day.
If you don’t have it yet, I recommend purchasing SwitchResX software, as Apple’s own display management tool is garbage. What you can do is create custom “Display Sets” which are arrangements of monitors and custom settings/resolutions which you can then turn on/off. Ocassionaly a monitor will disappear, but then doing a “Detect Displays” in SwitchResX usually fixes it for me.
That software has largely made a lot of my monitor issues like saving layouts go away.
I used to have this problem with my Plugable dock and managed to permanently fix it by changing the orientation of the USB-C cable. The pins are not perfectly symmetric, and some devices don't handle one orientation correctly. You might have luck experimenting with the rotation.
My understanding is that the problem with high bandwidth/resolution setups over displayport (which may not be your use case) is in your mac, not in your hub. Older comment thread here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29214726
I'm totally not suprised by this. I'm using USB-C between the hub and the monitor, and that seems to be working fine, so I basically haven't thought too much about it.
> It honestly feels like no matter what you buy, you get more or less the same hardware, and you’re most likely getting a heavily overpriced product just because some company printed their logo on it.
Isn't this like a known thing? Almost all peripherals on Amazon will have dozens of the exact same form-factor with different logos on it. You just buy the one that is the perfect intersection of costs, positive reviews, and shipping time. The assumption is that they all come from the same factory in China anyways.
Problem basing on reviews is that people mostly only review when they receive and test the product for the first time.
Not many will bother finding the item and review it n months ago when the bad capacitors dies or they gave up frustrated by a recurring but intermitent issue.
I'm not the same user, though I also prefer no/minimal logos on devices or clothing.
The practical advantage of no logos is that this avoids judgement. People may look down on you for spending so much to get an item from a brand, while other people might look down on you for spending too little. You could just not care about others' judgement, though other people could still treat you differently. Separately, there is the ethical issue of whether one frames visible logos as 'free advertising,' which might not be desirable to do.
The sociology text "Class: A Guide Through the American Status System" by Paul Fussell also explores why some people deliberately wear brands, while others avoid them.
On a (potential over-analysis) of why some people deliberately have branded items: ""Legible clothing" is Alison Lurie's useful term to designate things like T-shirts or caps with messages on them you're supposed to read and admire. [...] When proles assemble to enjoy leisure, they seldom appear in clothing without words on it. As you move up the classes and the understatement principle begins to operate, the words gradually disappear, to be replaced, in the middle and upper- middle classes, by mere emblems, like the Lacoste alligator. Once, ascending further, you've left all such trademarks behind, you may correctly infer that you are entering the purlieus of the upper class itself."
"Brand names today possess a totemistic power to confer distinction on those who wear them. By donning legible clothing you fuse your private identity with external com- mercial success, redeeming your insignificance and becoming, for the moment, somebody. [...] And this need is not the proles' alone. Witness the T-shirts and carryalls stamped with the logo of The New York Review of Books, which convey the point "I read hard books," or printed with portraits of Mozart and Haydn and Beethoven, which assure the world, "I am civilized."
On why some people deliberately avoid logos: "X people are independent-minded, free of anxious regard for popular shibboleths, loose in carriage and demeanor. [...] Since there's no one they think worth impressing by mere appearance, X people tend to dress for themselves alone, which means they dress comfortably, and generally "down." [...] If the Xs ever descend to legible clothing, the words-unlike BUDWEISER or U.S.A. DRINKING TEAM-are original and interesting, although no comment on them is ever expected. Indeed, visibly to notice them would be bad form."
The TL;DR of the whole hypothesis by Fussell is that some people avoid having brands on their physical stuff because they don't want others to see a logo on an item; connect the logo to values of a corporation as part of that corporation's "brand identity"; and make assumptions about that person's personal identity based on that brand identity.
I live in a world overrun by capitalism and inundated with ads. The inescapable consumerism is sickening. That it’s the norm to run ads on practically every consumer product is absurd, and I feel gaslit that apparently everyone else is comfortable with it. We pay to remove ads from many services—why does my thousand-dollar bicycle still have a permanent billboard on the side? Have I not paid enough? Removing a logo from my life is one small reprieve from the dystopia.
I also try to cover up logos when I can, but that's the thing: to many, it's not seen as an ad, but rather a form of expression. Having an expensive brand might signal to other cyclists that one is supposedly more experienced, or more serious of a cyclist than people with cheaper bicycles (in reality, the skill is what counts, but the brand focus is what the companies want you to believe). So, it's supposedly a feature.
More examples in the winter fashion industry: supposedly, to wear a Patagonia jacket says you care about sustainability; to wear a Canada Goose jacket says you have a quality coat and can afford it; while to wear Arc'teryx means you're a pro outdoorsy bloke prepared for extreme weather. A lot of the price comes from people wanting to communicate stuff about their identity.
(Slightly off-topic, but the cheapest and most functional way to stay warm isn't a parka, but wearing multiple layers, e.g. a base layer, a puffer jacket, and a waterproof windbreaker.)
> Removing a logo from my life is one small reprieve from the dystopia.
And a great way to advertise to your peer group that you're comfortable and wealthy enough to be able to choose to disengage from the capitalist rat race!
My friends laugh when i buy *anything, as the first thing i do is black-marker (i generally only buy black stuff) over any logos.
For me, those little flashes of logo are just distracting.
A lot of the time, sure, this is exactly what happens. But other times, there is a distinct difference in quality. How do you know when you’re in situation A or B? You can’t trust the reviews. You can’t even trust that the seller will send you the advertised product half the time.
Just to expand on this: I suspect and have been told that almost all powertools follow this model. The markup for most tools in the same class is essentially branding only.
This is mainly because power-tool quality across the board has greatly increased - once you're into a "band" they're much the same, though there are differences it's usually one of "focus" not of quality.
If you're dealing with off-brand or no-brand tools, you can still end up with something entirely usable but crappy. The prices usually tell most of the story.
"Project Farm" on YouTube does really great tool reviews with zero BS. There are differences between major tool brands and it's not just a matter of same factory, different brand sticker like with a lot of electronics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpjBJ8aQ3NE is a good example. It's pretty hard to go wrong with any of the major players these days, more about what color you like or their tool ecosystem. I'm into Milwaukee and like a whole lot of their tools, so I ended up getting about a dozen of them over the years. Milwaukee tends to be on or near the top in terms of performance, and while that might not be necessary for occasional non-professional use, I have done a few things with them where I was glad to have the extra power or just have a well-designed tool that is easy to use. Festool is even more premium but when I started buying Milwaukee they didn't have any or maybe only very few cordless tools, and they were too expensive for me at the time. Home Depot does pretty awesome holiday sales on Milwaukee if you keep an eye out, and eBay also has great deals on "tool only" once you have some batteries in your ecosystem of choice, as people do things like buy combo packs and sell the individual tools they don't want. Milwaukee also has excellent batteries that while pricey, are again relatively easy to find deals on if you keep an eye out.
Hand tools are sometimes more about feel than actual performance differences, but over the years I've come to appreciate (and be able to easily afford) the nicer stuff. It's nice not stripping Phillips head screws now that I've got really nice drivers with excellent sharp grippy tips in all the different sizes to properly fit. I grew up with the poorly-made fake chrome set of "jewelers" screw drivers that I'm sure many of y'all also learned on. I guess it makes me appreciate Wiha / PB Swiss / Wera / Felo / Klein MIUSA / custom boutique stuff (check out Scout Leather Co and CountyComm TPSK for some of the best precision multi-bit drivers I've used) more now.
I admit that there are some made-up Chinese brands that are just slapping a random name on stuff coming out of the same few factories and selling on Amazon (then changing the name if they get bad reviews) for tools, but that's only really at the bottom of the market. Mid and top-tier tools do actually have measurable performance differences in many cases. Whether that's worth it to you is for y'all to decide. I just really hate ruining a project / breaking stuff because of bad tools that can't do the job, and I dislike supporting companies that make knock-off designs (i.e. they don't pay for their own R&D) out of cheaper, weaker metals then selling look-alikes at still-too-much-for-what-you're-getting prices. There's actually a name for this in the bicycle world: "bike shaped objects".
I wish that most screws and hand screwdriver heads (I have more electronics than mechanical experience) were designed to not slip/strip in the first place. Torx is great, Phillips is not, I hear that there are alternative cross-shaped screw heads which don't strip, and I don't know if they work on Phillips screws or not. Though I don't have expensive hardened screwdrivers, and most products' screws aren't expensive and hardened either.
>It's nice not stripping Phillips head screws now that I've got really nice drivers with excellent sharp grippy tips in all the different sizes to properly fit.
Life hack: use a better screw. Pozidriv is 60 years old!
It’s _mostly_ kinda sorta like that. There are broad groups that are basically the same; Craftsman and Dewalt being owned by Black and Decker, for instance. But it’s a crazy web depending on particular tools or features it goes from a couple root manufacturers to a dozen or so. But there’s a lot of BS.
Pro Tool Reviews did a big break down [0] a while ago that was very eye opening for me. It could easily be out of date by now but I had no clue how deep the groupings went at the time.
Yes, this. There are a few exceptions, thing like ssd drives, ram, sd cards, etc which I buy from companies that I know manufacture their own. For random peripherals, I just make sure it's Amazon Prime so there won't be any hassle if/when I need to return them.
I make an exception for earphones. Unless you're buying off-brand, you can be pretty certain that you're not getting white labelled. I'm listening to an audio book on Shure TW2's w/ se215 heads attached... not much chance that's white labelled. Same for the lower quality but also lower profile Galaxy Buds Live that I use as well.
I have mostly stopped buying small electronics on Amazon, going to AliExpress instead. You get the same thing for much cheaper. The value Amazon has is in shipping time, but you pay a hefty premium for that.
It is important to note that the cheapest, unbranded (or counterfeit) products may actually miss components. Looking at the PCB, you may see an empty slot where a MOV or a filtering cap should be, underspecced components or blatant counterfeits (no, that cap is not a Nichicon!). They may be from the same factories, but brand names usually don't get that low, and they have people on site making sure the factories don't pull these stunts on their batch.
In a competitive market someone would (supposedly) see the need and create a competitively priced product that is higher quality, but maybe doesn't have the brand recognition. But that doesn't really seem to happen. I think part of it is that gaming amazon reviews is cheaper than actually making a higher quality product.
This may sound a bit pedantic here, but this statement:
" I’m writing this on an Apple MacBook Pro, and all I got was four lousy USB-C ports"
Is wildly inaccurate, as the author demonstrates in his conclusions where he explains that he's settled on a Thunderbolt hub.
Yes, they're more expensive, and yes, they're harder to find, but the fact is, for this type of use USB-C is kinda junky, and Thunderbolt is a much better option.
the Dell TB16 is just about the worst docking station I've ever used and that was Thunderbolt 3, and their USB-C equivalent (WD16 iirc) worked flawlessly.
Likely if you tore down the TB16 you would find the chip mentioned in TFA.
I've dealt with a number of these docks. And yeah, it's a Realtek NIC on them, and it's a total piece of crap. Endless issues with these docks, firmware updates, new drivers constantly... None of it ever helps.
I tried using it on my Mac. But it's on some kind of an Apple blacklist and won't work on Macs. There was some way to enable it, by turning off system protection or some shit... But even then, you could not get all the functionality.
I have never gotten the TB16 to work on anything other than Dells of around the same era. I don't think it's Apple blacklisting it, but rather the dock whitelisting things.
No when you plug it into a Mac, it literally says "Unsupported" in the system report and will not work. When I got it partly working at one point, I had to edit some kind of system file that basically allowed the device to be used. And it still didn't work well.
I agree - Thunderbolt is the way to go. It's typically 2 - 3x the price of a USB-C dock, but it's well worth it for me.
I have the TBT3-UDV and caldigit TS4 TBolt dock. They both rely on DC power supplies and higher quality components (intel NIC, for example). Both have been very stable over the last year for the TS4 and 3 yrs for the TBT3.
How much of the ethernet problems are due to these hubs and how much is due to ethernet autoneg just sucking? On my mac mini with whatever ethernet hardware they use, the link randomly negotiates 10, 100, full duplex, half duplex, flow control on or sometimes off. It's all coin tosses.
Potentially, but the problem is that now you had no choice. Back then, your laptop would come with a reputable (most likely Intel) Ethernet controller that you would use so you had no reason to buy an external one and bear the risk of getting a shitty one. Now, more and more laptops don't have an Ethernet controller, so you have no choice but to roll the dice and churn through multiple dongles until you get one with a controller that doesn't suck.
I have a gigabit connection and have been using the CalDigit TS3+ since it came out. Zero issues, zero problems with it stepping down to 100 Mbps or anything else. I have GigE plugged in, two monitors, two large disk arrays, sound, and usually a couple other random things. The monitors and all peripherals work flawlessly, wake flawlessly from sleep, etc.
Every time I test the speed, it's around 940 Mbps, which is about the max that a gig fiber connection can actually push to you. Every time.
By contrast, a lot of my IT clients have tried to get by with the crappy cheap USB-C hubs or docks mentioned in this article, and without exception, they always completely suck. Eventually, they start listening to me and they buy a quality dock instead, and then their problems magically cease.
The Dell DA310 is the best all in one USB hub that I have ever purchased. Works fantastic on Apple devices. Been using a number of them for a decent amount of time.
Sure, it also uses an RTL8153, and might need the Realtek drivers to work (out of luck if you are on macOS 11+) but it was the first USB hub that I used forever, where everything just worked.
I don't use it for PD, I don't trust that on any hub.
+ Belkin's thunderbolt dock - Ethernet is a mess and takes down my network switch when my macbook goes to sleep. This seems like a common issue. The fix is to "unplug ethernet when putting laptop to sleep".
+ Anker's bigger usb c dock - actually this one works for me, though I am using it with an XPS 15.
+ The spouse has a CalDigit 3. She says it has no issues.
I ran into a problem with one of these docks where the network adapter would randomly start flooding the network if it was left plugged in after the computer was disconnected. It didn't happen every time, maybe once every few months. The guy who had this thing would take off for the day a little before 5 and then total chaos by the time he was pulling away in his car.
The whole time I was reading this I was hoping that the author would have found something good at the end. This is unfortunate.
I had the same initial hub as the author, and like the author, it died. I think it was branded UGreen or something. I've currently got a Baesus. Likely it's all the same trash.
I had a Dell USB-C dock last year which worked quite well, but it's a chunky thing that isn't great for travelling.
I wish there was a similar guide that ends with finding a product that actually performs. It would be great to see Apple or something try to address this issue without having to buy three dongles.
Shitty USB-C is incredible.
I have some docks/SD-card reader devices that somehow only work when plugged in with side A facing up despite the port allowing plugging in either way.
If you're purchasing something to use permanently at your desk, it's worth spending more for a Thunderbolt dock. Most USB-C hubs are total crap.
You'll get far faster transfer speeds, more ports, charging (and at full speed), proper display output (dual 4K/60hz) and better components/reliability. The CalDigit TS3 Plus[1] is what I've used for several years - first with a 2019 Intel MBP and now with my new 2021 M1 Pro MBP. It's pricey compared to a USB-C dongle, but rock solid.
I went through 2 CalDigit TS3 docks previously, and returned both of them. They had a good number of ports and seemed reliable for the few weeks I had them. But both of them had audibly noisy capacitors, resulting in a tinnitus-like 16KHz tone that would get louder when moving the mouse or when connecting an external monitor to the dock.
We have three StarTech docks since November or December. No coil whine so far, except for the Realtek NIC (which works out-of-the-box on Macs, but is meh otherwise), we didn't have any issues with it.
I bought two identical 3x 4k docks from Startech, and used them for M1 and M1 Max macbooks. One of them developed a very loud coil whine. No other problems, but it was too loud to be used alongside a dead silent laptop. The other is fine.
Docks are always a hit or miss thing. I had Dell docks before, also ~350 eur or so, and they consistently failed to wake up the external screens on resume from sleep. Same screens worked just fine on the Startech.
I think that Thunderbolt is not a particularly good solution for anything. You get 99% of the things it can do in USB-C, and the things that it can't either don't work on Apple machines (eGPU) or are needlessly high performance (I'm fine with my external SSDs being limited to just a couple 100 MB/s).
In exchange you get a lot more expensive hubs, stiff, expensive cables, and a much more limited computer compatibility.
I suspect the difference is more between manufacturers than between USB-C/Thunderbolt. I bought the old CalDigit USB-C dock years ago for my 2016 rMacBook (no Thunderbolt support), and it’s still working fine today with my M1 MBA.
We have been told, repeatedly, about the "next great thing" in standards. The EU mandated micro-USB (ugh!). 7 years ago we were being hyped up about USB-C.
Here we are 7 years later, and the SAME lighting cable apple has had for 10 years (!!) is more sturdy, has great low latency (if you compare to USB-C for music making the difference is crazy), has fantastic reliable power delivery.
I mean, after 10 years you'd think the new standards would be absolutely crushing Apple's old tech.
But I can't get the low latency on USB-C for audio I get on lighting (anyone know why? Both are wires) 10+ years later.
It's maddening. And the power delivery and speeds of USB-C/USB3 are just crazily all over the map. You can plug into a blue USB3 port and go no faster than you did on an old port!
The problem here isn't related to the standardized port and incompatibility between devices, though, is it? It's a matter of the functionality of the hardware in the peripheral, which has been an issue with USB hubs forever. Your comment is all about device compatibility, not devices being cheap and shitty.
One begets the other is my implied argument, if the standard wouldn't be this wide and allow for so much missing functionality, devices being this cheap and shitty would stick out more. Overall prices would be higher, but the quality per device would increase, even if just for economy of scale reasons.
How many bad USB 2 Hubs did you have to deal with?
This has nothing to do with USB 3 or USB-C, though. The same shortcomings were true of previous USB standards, it just was rarely feasible to run so many different peripherals through a single hub.
When chips die, that's not something the standard could affect.
When a USB to Ethernet converter happens to be on the same circuit board as an actual hub, the USB standard isn't responsible for the Ethernet part.
The screen connections are pretty much just passthrough. That's the narrowest you can get.
And it doesn't sound like the USB ports on the hubs had any problems.
If you split things up by standard, you'd have a USB hub that always works, with a flaky ethernet converter plugged in one port and a flaky HDMI converter plugged in another port.
I'm currently using a UNI usb C hub that has worked flawlessly. I think it's bespoke because the port layout is nothing like all the clones and the reviews seem to show it's not flaky.
> I appear to be paying a lot of money for products that I could buy for cheap on random websites is starting to piss me off a bit at this point.
The last 5+ years as an Amazon customer have me feeling this way.
> Realtek RTL8153
Could the Realtek issues be related to power?
I have a Tbolt dock which is powered using a DC barrel jack (6.5amps @ 20V). The comparison is not great as the dock (TBT3-UDZ) is not a USB C dock and uses the Intel i211 nic.
The author appears to have found stability with the Anker PowerExpand 8-in-1, which has the buck converter with power management components.
I've had terrible experiences with the Satechi Multiport Adapter V2 and ICY BOX USB-C type adapters.
I suspect that the issues can typically narrow down with any dock to bandwidth or power.
I am making these Type-C hubs for a living, and indeed RTL8153 is the most trouble free, and cheap chip on the market.
Though, I myself had misfortune buying broken RTL8153 based ethernet NICs. Mismatched coupling capacitors, PCB shorts, possibly broken firmwares.
40%-30% people who do EE in China are just above the Arduino level.
Chinese engineering companies can make good hardware if you pay them, and give time to fix self induced issues coming from rushed development schedules, but in that case, they are not really that ahead from any other EE companies around the world.
Though, I myself had misfortune buying broken RTL8153 based ethernet NICs.
One of the issues with the RTL8153 NIC is (as a sibling commenter points out) that on M1 Macs, you are confined to the CDC-ECM driver. RTL8153 with this driver usually cap at ~700MBit and cause a lot of CPU load (usually restricted to the efficiency cores, but it's still pretty bad anyway).
For USB docks, I can still understand the choice. But IMO this is inexcusable for Thunderbolt docks. You can tunnel PCI-E, so nothing holds dock makers from hanging a good NIC with well-supported drivers on the PCI-E bus. Some higher-end Thunderbolt Docks do this AFAIK. The Apple Thunderbolt 2 Ethernet adapter uses a Broadcom NIC on the PCI-E bus and can reach 1000MBit without causing high CPU loads. Unfortunately, it requires a Thunderbolt 3 -> 2 adapter, which is more expensive than the Ethernet adapter itself.
At least with respect to macOS, the Realtek 8153 chipsets in these docks suffer from having to use the built-in ECM driver. If you're on Apple Silicon, that's your only option. If you're on Intel, there are some flaky but more performant drivers from Realtek available. The ECM driver will cause high CPU load and for many users, will result in performance that's worse than wifi because of it. You'll also get audio dropouts and system hitches from the CPU loading.
If you can find an adapter that uses the Realtek 8156 chipset, which I believe the CalDigit TS4 uses, macOS will utilize the NCM driver and your performance will be rock solid.
ECM is a very primitive USB protocol for ethernet, whereas NCM is a more modern and performant one. NCM is to ECM as UASP is to BOT mode, if you're familiar with USB external drives.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 180 ms ] threadIt's a heap of crap. (Or, at least, the conjunction of it and Monterey is a heap of crap.) If I leave it plugged in when the Mac goes to sleep, eventually the Mac will kernel panic and force a restart. The ethernet just randomly dies, such that I now run the Mac permanently off wifi even though I have a superb fibre connection. The USB connections do at least work, but that's about all I can say of it.
In my experience (my team has deployed about 50k in 3 years), the thunderbolt ones are more reliable, even if the laptop doesn’t have thunderbolt.
Might be a issue on the other end of the thunderbolt connector.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0928W3XHD
They have been using "Apple" style packaging (nice "unboxing experience" kind of boxes) and include slogans like "americas favorite charging brand" (the broken english on their website doesn't reassure me) on recent products I've bought from them, so they are certainly trying to make a brand for themselves as being above the standard junk you can find on Amazon, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was rebranded.
I know that USB-C can cause interference on Bluetooth/WiFi bands, but this was never an issue with properly shielded adapters.
At that time, comments saying Anker was the best peripheral maker flooded the internet and made me feel like I was crazy.
I made this mistake, and I ended up with a grossly overpriced monitor which fails to charge a MacBook Pro and whose video through USBC support is hit-and-miss, in the sense that it doesn't always work.
I have no idea what led you to believe that someone searching for monitors that charge MacBook pros with thunderbolt did not checked if the monitor charged MacBook pros with thunderbolt.
though of course my laptop's intel GPU + mesa drivers tears drawing to the screen, but i generally don't care and don't watch video or play games on the laptop
And you can just swap between them by switching the active input source?
I do the same input switching he mentioned, and it works very reliably.
It also has support for pbp mode, where it can display each computer on a portion of the screen.
Currently I have a 34" 3440 x 1440, and with two separate docking stations (one for each laptop) and a USB hub for my peripherals that is connected to both docking stations. It's a lot of extra mess on my desk that ideally I would like to cleanup with having everything connect directly to the monitor.
BTW, how is the resolution on the 40"? Can you use it with native resolution, or do you have to do any scaling? Having all of that extra screen real estate would be awesome
For most peripherals, there are software solutions. I ditched any kind of KVM, and my monitor does not have USB ports. However, I use my monitor to switch inputs and use barrier to use the same keyboard and mouse on multiple systems (up to four). It works well and when traveling I also use it to work on my work laptop, with my personal laptop off to the side for reference materials, calendar etc.
KB/mouse -> switch -> desktop/monitor
Monitor <-> laptop (usb-c)
Desktop -> monitor (HDMI)
The downsides are that it only supports 45W charging, and you can't really use dual monitors.
Ideally I could use a KVM so everything is switched in one device. But USB switching is cheap and reliable (my switch cost $25 and has been rock solid), whereas the cheapest KVM I could find to do this cost $150, doesn't support 144hz, is stuck on hdmi 2.0, etc.
Depending on my needs I can run one of my computers using the full width, or run 2 at half width each.
This route doesn't have to be expensive either, my 1440p, 27 inch Philips docking monitor cost $270, basically the price of mediocre level docking station.
I'm running a Dell 27" 4K monitor and a ViewSonic 15" portable 1080p monitor along with the internal display full-time, with both external displays plugged in via USB-C on the Surface dock; and it's been reasonably reliable.
I don't have any other USB-C peripherals plugged in to the dock, and I haven't tried a fourth display; but so far, so good, no complaints.
So good I bought a second.
1. https://www.caldigit.com/thunderbolt-4-element-hub/
Even the OWC brand one I had was flakey, at similar $200-400 price point.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf22bddvLnc
Having heard positive things about caldigit, I got their USB-C Pro Dock and I get frequent screen blanking with my M1 Mac, and often some of the USB ports fail to work. I don't use the ethernet port, but I think it is a Realtek (so likely the same thing the author is complaining about)
I have spoken to caldigit support and so far they have replaced the dock once, and now have gone pretty quiet.
Your comments about the Screen Blanking sound bad and are are likely correct, I only have an Intel Mac to compare.
The funny thing is that 2015 Intel MBP (with Apple TB2->TB3 adapter) with the same dock and same monitor didn't blank or flicker. I guess it is something about the new Apple TB implementation in M1.
I’m not pushing 4K though, so mileage may vary. I’ve got a 27” TB2 Apple Cinema Display via TB2 to USB-C and a Dell via Display port.
As a guy working with Raspberry Pi and 3D printers a lot in my free time it is SO NICE to have the card reader right up front and easy to access. I also love un/plugging just one cord when I’m on the go.
(1) I keep my MBP closed. It take 10-30 seconds for it to wake up on keypress. That's so long that I often have no way to tell if it noticed I pressed key.
(2) If XCode is debugging and the screen sleeps then MacOS 12 never recovers unless I disconnect the cable, open the lid, get it wake up on the laptop monitor, and then plug it back in and finally close the lid.
I get why #2 is rare and therefore not fixed but still (T_T)
Pretty lame that one of the "best" laptop mfgs in the world can't make docks work right with one of the biggest CPU / IP mfgs in the world. Laptop sleep states were a problem back in the early 90s on Linux...some things really never change.
So for the feedback on keypress, I'm using devices with backlight. Both keyboard or mouse work fine, once they light up, you know that it is waking up.
I've tested 5+ TS3 Plus docks, and all of them have a coil whine, which can be heard in a quiet room, without playing any music.
Sometimes I like to work in silence, and the coil whine really bothers me.
Probably time for a change I guess.
Otherwise both worked fine allowing me to drive 3 screens on the OG M1 mbp. They each cost around 350 eur though.
CalDigit's TS4 has Ethernet (2.5 GbE). I've been a happy TS3 user for years.
https://www.caldigit.com/thunderbolt-station-4/
I had bad luck with the QNAP QNA-T310G1S and Sonnet Solo 10G SFP+ (surprising as their stuff is usually rock-solid) -- both based on the AQC100S chipset and the aQuantia AQtion driver just didn't work for me under LTS Ubuntu.
[0]: https://www.razer.com/gaming-pc-accessories/razer-thunderbol...
https://www.fivebelow.com/products/4-port-type-c-charging-hu...
I'll have saved enough to send him to College.
.
Hack 1. Gas light your children ...
Since "real" USB-C hubs seem to be garbage, why use one?
Do not waste your money on high end consumer stuff, the enterprise stuff is better and the market is flooded with disposed units…
Work in a large F50 and all the enterprise grade ones we've had are decent.
This is the current model they are giving folks:
https://us.targus.com/products/usb-c-universal-dv4k-docking-...
I've been running an Intel MacBook Pro (last intel version I think) on it the last few months with 2 external HP displays, keyboard, mouse, and it is a solid performer.
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/usb-graphics-adapter,30...
I’m able to switch my personal (Lenovo) and work (Dell) laptops, mostly without issue. I say without issue because the Dell/Intel only supports HBM2 so won’t do two monitors if one of them is more than 1080p.
I settled on using the HDMI out from the laptop to split the difference in frustration and convenience.
It works fine on ThinkPads. Unless you are using Linux, where 4k@60Hz does not work due to lane misconfiguration (maybe this is fixed by now?). On Macs, I have found this Dock to be a complete disaster. It would often not charge unless you plug/unplug the Dock several times. Also Ethernet often doesn't work (it uses a Realtek NIC). I had two and sold both of them, because they are practically unusable with Macs, and replaced them by Startech Thunderbolt 3 Docks, which work great.
This is a known failure mode, but it doesn't hit everybody. It is solely an Apple software fault as older OSs do not exhibit it. I really wish I knew what the issue was.
On the plus side, I found this so infuriating that I finally threw all in and switched to Linux full-time (Lenovo X1 Carbon with a ThinkPad dock) and haven't looked back since.
Side note: practically every thunderbolt dock I have works fine with every x86 laptop I have running either Windows or Linux (including the Caldigit!). YMMV.
I have used them with my MacBooks over the years as well as my gaming PC (ASUS ProArt B550 motherboard), and they are the most reliable part of my desktop setup. They are not just reliable, but reliably fast. I get full gigabit ethernet speed, fast USB transfer speeds, and fast SD card reading, without fail, every time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f6Zs1JyZBQ
It doesn’t have built-in HDMI/DisplayPort out, but it’s easy to buy the appropriate cable to connect to your monitor (I recommend Club3D [2]). Especially if you’re trying to use an HDMI 2.1 or DisplayPort 1.4 display, as I’ve found most built-in ports on these hubs don’t support these latest standards or have weird issues with them.
It also has a nice mounting bracket [3] that lets you hide the cable mess under your desk or behind your monitor.
[1] https://www.kensington.com/p/products/device-docking-connect...
[2] https://www.club-3d.com/en/cat/cable/usb_type_c/1606/301/
[3] https://www.kensington.com/p/products/device-docking-connect...
The best solution to this I've seen is on Angelbird’s SD Dual Card Reader which uses a sadly proprietary shaped molded USB-C connector that goes DEEP into the reader, but it is very snug and wiggle-proof. I haven't tried, but I'm confident that I could swing this thing around by the cable and not hurt it or have it disconnect at all. It really does feel like the piece of pro-level kit that would be at home on a DIT cart like it was designed for.
The Lenovo TB3 Workstation dock worked relatively well for docking an X1 Extreme, and that too has a proprietary connector which combines Lenovo's charging plug with a TB3 connector. It's secure and doesn't wiggle much, but it's short and flexible but not terribly so (large bend radius).
Lastly, I'd just like to complain about how lame it is that there are so few docks with >1 HDMI or [preferably] DP connectors. On the OWC dock, I was literally using 1x MiniDP to DP adapter cable for one monitor, then a USB-C DP alt-mode dongle plugged into HDMI to the other monitor. Plugging a dongle into a dock is serious product-level cringe. Surely I'm not the only person in the world who wants to close their workstation-class laptop and use it with dual 4K60 32" monitors, yet there seem to be so few products that work like that. I don't want to dasiy-chain one over TB either. I understand the bandwidth limitations and hope that TB4 makes this an easier sell.
My Ideal TB4 dock: - LOCKING connector, somehow. Build a cage around it like they do for some IECs or mold in a deep strain relief or something. - 3X DisplayPort 2.0 (since they lock, unlike almost all HDMI that isn't on rackmount pro gear that news stations have)...DP 2.0 has been out since 26 June 2019. - 25G SFP slot that can take a 10GbE GBIC, DAC, or fiber. I'd settle for 10G SFP. - 2x downstream TB4 ports that can fall back to USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (ugh, really not a fan of USB IF naming conventions) - 4x USB 2.0 type A on a hub to plug in all the stuff that doesn't need much bandwidth, like keyboards / mice / phone charger / bluetooth dongle / YubiKey. - 2x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type A ports for fastish devices like external HDDs that came out before Type C. - Pass through the entire 100W and make that actually work with MacBooks. I've plugged into so many docks that can't actually charge the larger MBPs. They'll give 45w or something, which doesn't cut it for MBPs, let alone mobile workstation class laptops. 100W would at least keep a laptop with a 45W TDP CPU and at least as powerful GPU afloat. I'm talking about stuff that comes with 200w+ power bricks here. I don't mind terribly plugging in the power adapter separately, just don't make me do what Lenovo did and plug TWO POWER BRICKS INTO THE DOCK. That's a bit much. - No damn 3.5mm headphone + mic jacks (extra audio chipset that is inevitably worse than the one built in and much much worse than a proper external pro interface), built-in wifi, bluetooth, built-in m.2 / 2.5" SSD...I love the SD card reader personally but make it a damn good fast one or just give me another couple of USB ports instead.
The closest I can get to this today is the Lenovo workstation dock, which they now make in a TB4 flavor featuring: 1 x 3.5mm Audio combo Jack 4 x USB-A 1 x USB-C 1 x HDMI 2.1 2 x Displayport 1.4 1 x RJ45 (gigabit) 1 x Thunderbolt (for Host connect) 1 x Thunderbolt (for Device connect)
https://www.sonnetstore.com/products/echo-11-thunderbolt-4-d...
And $40 cheaper than the Kensington branded one.
So even though it's thunderbolt and it works for you - it really is the same thing TFA is talking about.
I don't think that's a good thing though. No adapter/hub should be this complex IMO. I don't know how the ubiquity of USB got us to this point, it seems worse than before.
> Engineers: "Okay... but it's going to be expensive and complicated..."
> Apple: "Money is insignificant next to the power of user experience."
> Intel: "Oh, people are actually using this thing we created?"
> USB-IF: "But us, b..."
> Intel: "So the USB won't let me B. Or let my TB be USB, so let me C."
> USB-IF: "You are again our hearts' delight."
> Customers: "Why is this so complicated? Remember when one connector meant one kind of cable? Those were great days."
And that's how we got here.
No it isn't, lol. Thudernbolt/usb-c docks are a solution to a made-up problem.
It is absolutely possible to have all the necessary ports on a modern slip laptop.
Just look at the Dell Latitude 7390:
- https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/dell-latitude-7390
- https://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-Latitude-7390-i5-8350U-SS...
> Motorola 68000 CPU running at 12 MHz, 512 KB of workspace RAM, and a 1 MB frame buffer.
vs the Mac 128K with
> Motorola 68000 microprocessor running at 7.8336 MHz, connected to 128 KB RAM shared by the processor and the display controller
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaserWriter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K
It notes that the Kingston, Sonnet, and others are rebrands of the Goodway DBD1100.
They are virtually silent, have capable, reliable TB3 hubs. Outside the Mac Pro line, the BM eGPUs offered graphics capability to macs going back years that was only surpassed with the recent ASi MBPs.
They are remarkably stable and ultimately a great value.
I also recommend the TS3 Plus, though it’s not as rock solid. Mine sometimes has a high frequency noise issue when the DP port is in use, though your resolution changes the hum’s volume. Also it freezes up occasionally, but I used it for 2 years without many troubles.
I was happy with mine until I started using an extra display with it recently. The main display is hooked up via DisplayPort. The problem arose when I added a second display over USB C.
For some reason, when I plug the monitor into the dock, there's a faint electrical noise. If I plug the monitor into a USB C port on the laptop instead, it's perfectly quiet. Maybe I should attempt HDMI instead. Either way it's frustrating.
And good luck getting anything close to RTX 3090Ti performance in a laptop. It'd basically be a toasted oven on your lap.
Desktops can just sink a ton more heat, and as process shrinks and die size increases have gotten us less and less additional performance each year, we're just pushing power up to the point now where a TOTL gaming desktop is pulling close to 1KW. A laptop will never come close. If you really do want to try a literal desktop CPU in a laptop, there are mfgs like Eurocom and Sager that will sell you one, just don't expect it not to throttle a lot under actual heavy workloads.
Wait, what? Are you like cryptomining or something? That's actually insane. I charge two electric cars at home, work from home using a powerful workstation, and my electricity is about £100/month. How do you manage to spend 800 euro a month????
That might not be a full-time goal. Some want a machine that works on the move but can be expanded to bigger screens and such when at certain locations (office and/or home). A laptop and dock allow this compromise.
It is a compromise, not one suitable for all. But it is the list inconvenient option for many.
I wouldn't say "some". Probably 90% of developers I know require exactly this, in fact off the top of my head I can't think of any who don't. Even the permanent, full-remote, no-really-there-is-literally-no-office types want to sit in a different room sometimes or work from a coffee shop.
It's pretty rare to have a "workstation" setup that cannot be moved.
'... where we came in. Having to buy an external dock is such a compromise! I want to have all the ports on my laptop!'
'But if all your peripherals are connected directly, you need to connect and disconnect them every time, so you have to compromise on mobility. Isn't this...'
And different variations on this same spiral.
Sure, you could buy a separate desktop for that, but if you also go portable, don't want to bother with some kind of online sync solution, and want to move between laptop mode for on the go and something docked to big monitors and a no laptop keyboard/mouse for when you are at your primary workspace, getting a good laptop plus a dock rather than spending more for a laptop plus a separate desktop which makes you have to compromise on syncing somehow makes a lot of sense.
(Obviously, if you need desktop processing power, thermal envelopes mean that laptops aren't going to be competitive. But if that's your need, you aren't going to be looking at laptops, and how to connect peripherals isn't going to be your limiting factor.)
I find it surprising that the appeal of the above would be confusing for anyone.
The only things that move around are my laptop and I. I don't want to carry around a desktop computer and plug in power, screens, and USB hub every time I switch desks.
USB remains, of course, a donkey circus. Everyone involved in USB ought to be ashamed of themselves.
So it might be lunacy for you but it's not necessarily lunacy for others. And given the amount of market research these guys do I suspect the "never plug anything else in" crowd is pretty significant.
I don’t use external monitors with that device which probably makes a difference but IMO the point still stands - I think there is a silent majority of people who don’t want or care about more ports.
but I can comment on what a polygot cross-platform cross-cloud software engineer who supports a plethora of native portable devices integrations require, and thats USB hubs with ports coming out the ye-ha - otherwise im constantly playing musical chairs.
It's a nice way to avoid the lunacy here.
But why did you have to begin your comment with the condescending “all the sheep/ad devs”? It makes you look insecure and I only read beyond that because your comment was so brief.
There are machines with lots of ports and machines with few and someone’s choice of which to use is not a moral judgement.
I'm using a BT mouse explicitly not to bother with a stupid "2.4GHz USB Receiver" and keep one (USB-A!) port free.
Flash drive? Hardly ever used one; networking existed before they were invented.
I just need to swap the USB-C connector between the three and I get the same displays and peripherals.
Doing this with a "healthy array of external ports" would be a huge pain in the ass.
One for USB-C to Ethernet adapter.
One for Apple adapter that I plug USB-C power into, plus HDMI, plus a mouse.
Always works. Though it can’t prevent me forgetting to plug the Ethernet adapter in and realising I’ve been on wifi all day.
Sure this is relatively new and a ton of hubs are shit but this will only become better.
I can use my Anker mini dock on my laptop, switch and Samsung s22.
is there a USB-C option for me, or is my best bet a USB-A hub, a USB a-to-c adapter, and a usb c-to-a adapter.
This is cheaper in the same way I don't use a KVM and instead change the inputs in my monitor (Also, I'd have to figure out what DP KVM supports G-Sync and 1440p 165hz).
It’s impossible to find any KVM at any price point that works with 120Hz, and certainly not 120Hz@3840x1600. Forget about G-Sync.
I resorted to just keeping short USB and DP or TB->DP cable extenders plugged into the computer ports and have a “cable zone” where I just unplug and replug all the cables to switch machines. The short extensions are to protect the ports in the machines from wearing out.
It’s way cheaper than any KVM and it actually works.
Level1Techs a small shop that I discovered via their YouTube channel. While they don't manufacturer the KVM themselves (all to common, see the OP link), they look to have done rigorous testing and compatibility analysis. They claim it works up to 3840x2160@120hz because it supports DP 1.4.
https://store.level1techs.com/products/14-display-port-kvm-s...
I actually did many days of research into assembling my own KVM. HDMI is surprisingly straightforward but DP is a nightmare of nested standards. Just one example: There is support for running i2c tunneled through another protocol. The biggest issue is the link speeds that a DP1.4 cable runs at. The chips needed to do the switching are expensive and pretty much need to be machine assembled. When you get to those frequencies the trace design and board composition even become a factor.
After all that I don't find the $299+ for a good KVM to actually be that excessive. It's surprising how difficult it is to electronically do "I unplug cable and plug another one in".
I don't even need stuff like display spoofing, etc, since I only use one machine at a time and don't constantly switch, but it was just way too much work to put together. If you only need slower link speeds it's doable.
I do dev and browsing work at 30hz and the only thing I notice is the little gaps when moving the mouse fast.
I just notice discomfort when my monitor isn't >90Hz or so. On Windows it occasionally will reset to 60Hz, maybe due to video card driver updates? I could probably re-adjust back to 60Hz in a few weeks but I don't see the point of going through the discomfort, especially when I occasionally do play games where the higher frame rate makes a much more drastic difference.
On my M1 Mac mini, between the OWC dock and another dongle (bus powered) and the remaining ports on the Mac, I can run 10+ drives with no problem plus multiple peripherals. That may seem excessive, but when you’re juggling between drives trying to find old projects for people or trying to build a demo reel, it speeds up the process immensely. It also enabled me to consolidate a bunch of old 1 to 3 TB drives onto a couple of master 16 TB drives with everything in front of me at once, saving a ton of time, stress, and double checking.
Frankly it’s just nice not having to unplug something two or three times a day just to be able to plug in something else. I always have an available port now and it’s got me so much better organized.
https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-thunderbolt-dock
Two of them would buy a complete Ryzen mini-PC, which could be another way to convey how hard it must be to make a “decent” thunderbolt dock.
I’d been thinking about this and want to add to the evidence that even though MacBooks were USB-C only for years and years Apple never shipped a dock they only shipped single port dongles.
No way would Apple not sell a $500-$800 dock that could “solve the usb-c problem” unless there was a good reason and I think the reason is this solution is inherently janky for some unsolvable engineering reason and only single port cables are reliable to the level Apple was happy with.
I just had to get IT to swap mine out at work last week.
We have hundreds of CalDigit and OWC docks.. tons have failed. I had an OWC one fail a couple years ago as well.
And yah, these things cost as much as a Chromebook or a cheap windows notebook.
I went through 2 of these and finally bought generic usb C hubs and run 2x usbc->HDMI for 2x displays.
It has some Windows specific features that don’t work with Apple machines. So DYOR.
Gets a solid 980Mbits symmetric on the ethernet port, 90W of power delivery, etc. It's a lifesaver swapping just the one cable between my PC and laptop.
Works in USB-C mode too.
If it needs to be Thunderbolt and money is no object, there is the Apple Studio Display with 3 USB-C ports.
With this dock, I was able to run:
- 2 4K monitors - Gigabit Ethernet - USB-A - Audio connection for speakers - Power
all on one USB-C cable to the laptop. It also has an SD slot and a front-facing USB-A port for thumb drives, etc.
https://www.caldigit.com/ts3-plus/
I had two of them with 3 Sabrent Thunderbolt SSDs each. So when you setup a RAID level and then copy data from A to B, it did crash for me each time. For copy I used "Carbon Copy Cloner"
In fact I go so far to say Thunderbolt is not reliable at all for 24/7 use, as it gets much hotter and currently would require active cooling to prevent throttling.
So now, comically, I have to have a type-C Ethernet adapter connected to the back of my Thunderbolt dock...
Most work fine for a minute and then after a few months seems to get cranky and some input will start failing :/
Currently using that Anker hub mentioned. Probably the best of the bunch but that's not saying much. Lots of little annoyances.
One thing I found was putting the low powered USB A devices on a smaller hub "stick" that's USB-C and daisy chained to the Anker one. This has been the most stable setup.
But usually about twice a month stability will wane I'll have to unplug everything, restart computer and then plug them all back in one by one.
I wasn't thinking that though - I was thinking something like the ones reviewed in the article but perhaps with a Apple Thunderbolt connector to prevent them from having to support Windows PC users.
There is no such thing as "Apple Thunderbolt" just "Thunderbolt". It was developed by Intel, Apple was involved early in development with Intel and first to market >10 years ago but that's it. Most Windows laptops come with Thunderbolt and both Dell/Lenovo offer Thunderbolt Docks just as much as USB-C docks. Being Thunderbolt or not has no impact on whether or not the dock will support Windows/Linux vs macOS.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Thunderbolt_Display
I haven't bought the new studio display, but the Thunderbolt Display was great and the LG UltraFine 5K is, too. Used both as daily drivers (and docking stations) for years. I only haven't bought the new one because that LG one is still going strong.
Regardless: my point is that this certainly seems to be "the vision." You don't need a docking station because your monitor functions as one. If I had to guess, they probably think normal people don't want to buy a docking station and then deal with a series of poorly-integrated peripherals.
[1] https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/apple-studio-display/stan... [2] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210205
If you want a proper docking station, a higher end Dell monitor [0] will do with USB-C, display daisy chain and USB-PD. It'll enable single cable connectivity to anything you care, sans ethernet, which can be attached to the monitor's USB hub, if you really need.
For my mobility needs, I use a Kingston Nucleum [1] since I don't care about Ethernet, but about fast card readers. It also supports 60W USB-PD, which is ample for a MacBook Air M1. That thing is really high quality.
[0]: https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-ultrasharp-27-4k-u...
[1]: https://www.kingston.com/en/memory-card-readers/nucleum-usb-...
Also, of all the MacBook Air users I know, I'm the heaviest user in terms of processor load, and given that it's the company computer, it wouldn't be my first choice for a personal MacBook (in fact, I have a personal MacBook Pro).
At the end of the day, having a featherweight computer which can do all my work related tasks and some heavier stuff and doesn't needs its charger and ports most of the time is really a spoiling thing. However, for heavy development and photographic work, nothing beats on board ports and a bigger screen.
[0]: https://www.apple.com/v/macbook-air/n/images/specs/mba_charg...
[1]: https://images.macrumors.com/t/MsiVifkTbdhdqh2z2tvJZXIuH80=/...
HDMI would require curving the bottom differently but would easily fit in a laptop of that thickness.
But whatever, whether it fits or not with the current molding, the laptop does not need to be thicker to fit those ports. It just needs to change the curve near the back. Look how thick the middle is between the ports it has. That's way more than enough. Thickness including screen peaks at 16mm.
Just re-measured with a USB flash drive and an actual MacBook Air M1 (which I'm actually typing this comment on), and it's not. Do you want a photograph with a caliper?
> But whatever, whether it fits or not with the current molding, the laptop does not need to be thicker to fit those ports. It just needs to change the curve near the back. Look how thick the middle is between the ports it has. That's way more than enough. Thickness including screen peaks at 16mm.
Actually, you can see in [0], there's no space to fit a full depth, full height USB-A port inside there. You need to make the machine definitely thicker to accommodate that ports, given all the shielding a USB-A port around it [1]. This is a listing for a straight port. You'll probably need a 90 degree version in a MacBook Pro, unless apple does something ingenious.
[0]: https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/igi/eIi44fP1clanGHWQ.f...
[1]: https://sa.rsdelivers.com/product/wurth-elektronik/692121430...
But let's go back to the side view you first linked. Would you really say that this distance is too shallow for a USB A port? https://i.imgur.com/OtqDMh1.png It's more than a centimeter.
The machine reaches that thickness under the keyboard. Around the middle Torx screw holding the screen hinges on the top of the image.You can of course carry the thickness like the MacBook Pros to the edge, but there are other problems.
USB-A ports are a bit thicker than the opening themselves. A proper, high quality port has some spring loaded shielding pressing towards the port opening and it flares out, Also, 90 degree ports have some distance between the port body and contacts, since you need to fix the port to the board via quite a few pins (9 pins on electronic side, plus at least two for retention, unless you clamp in down via a retainer, which needs screws, etc).
All of this "machinery" adds quite a space required to implement a USB-A port on a board. As you can see in the article itself, the hubs themselves use "through the board, unflared" ports to minimize space use as much as possible, and none of them are very slim.
The slimmest USB 3.0 hub I've seen is from Anker [0][1], which I also use almost daily. As you can see, you need to have that slack around that port. Same port on a laptop needs same amount of slack around [2][3]. My older MacBook Pro also has similar amount of slack around its USB-A ports.
All in all, a MacBook Air doesn't have the thickness and space to include that port, in its current form. We're always talking about thickness, but insertion depth is at least 15%-20% greater for USB-A too. Plus you need the depth required for supporting the pins on the plug side. That needs to be taken into account, too.
[0]: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0493/9834/9974/products/An...
[1]: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0493/9834/9974/products/A7...
[2]: https://www.anandtech.com/show/16131/a-15inch-thin-laptop-fo...
[3]: https://images.anandtech.com/doci/16131/2.png
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MUF82AM/A/usb-c-digital-a...
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/HJKF2ZM/A/belkin-usb-c-to...
https://us.anker.com/products/a7516?variant=40237697171606
It's worth noting that the Realtek is crap, even ignoring the OSX driver situation. I have a few of the 2.5GBe dongles to make my synology speak 2.5gb/s (because a modern NAS is 2020 should have more then gigabit, but doens't because reasons). The driver in Linux is hot mess. I seem to have much more luck then some with it.
But they have turned their garbage products into a multi-billion dollar company and that's all that really matters in the world of business.
Whichever chip is the cheapest is the one that every accessory maker will use. It is rare that a company can break through with a product that advertises higher quality components but at a higher price, or they end up with such a massive premium on what should be a modest increase in BoM that the value proposition still doesn't make sense.
As a sidenote this is exactly what I expected to happen as laptop manufacturers started aggressively cutting ports from their machines. You have to switch to dongles, but dongles suck and the total experience is much worse than having a laptop that is 2mm thicker.
No complaints about the quality of the product btw, I have been using one myself for almost 2 years. I just found it pretty interesting that even the most recommended hub ends up potentially being just as suspect in terms of "who made it".
0. https://www.belkin.com/us/business/hubs-and-docks-for-busine...
What you described sometimes happens to me too, but definitely not multiple times a day.
If you don’t have it yet, I recommend purchasing SwitchResX software, as Apple’s own display management tool is garbage. What you can do is create custom “Display Sets” which are arrangements of monitors and custom settings/resolutions which you can then turn on/off. Ocassionaly a monitor will disappear, but then doing a “Detect Displays” in SwitchResX usually fixes it for me. That software has largely made a lot of my monitor issues like saving layouts go away.
Isn't this like a known thing? Almost all peripherals on Amazon will have dozens of the exact same form-factor with different logos on it. You just buy the one that is the perfect intersection of costs, positive reviews, and shipping time. The assumption is that they all come from the same factory in China anyways.
Not many will bother finding the item and review it n months ago when the bad capacitors dies or they gave up frustrated by a recurring but intermitent issue.
I've used it on my LG television, my Levoit air cleaning machines, and other devices.
The practical advantage of no logos is that this avoids judgement. People may look down on you for spending so much to get an item from a brand, while other people might look down on you for spending too little. You could just not care about others' judgement, though other people could still treat you differently. Separately, there is the ethical issue of whether one frames visible logos as 'free advertising,' which might not be desirable to do.
The sociology text "Class: A Guide Through the American Status System" by Paul Fussell also explores why some people deliberately wear brands, while others avoid them.
On a (potential over-analysis) of why some people deliberately have branded items: ""Legible clothing" is Alison Lurie's useful term to designate things like T-shirts or caps with messages on them you're supposed to read and admire. [...] When proles assemble to enjoy leisure, they seldom appear in clothing without words on it. As you move up the classes and the understatement principle begins to operate, the words gradually disappear, to be replaced, in the middle and upper- middle classes, by mere emblems, like the Lacoste alligator. Once, ascending further, you've left all such trademarks behind, you may correctly infer that you are entering the purlieus of the upper class itself."
"Brand names today possess a totemistic power to confer distinction on those who wear them. By donning legible clothing you fuse your private identity with external com- mercial success, redeeming your insignificance and becoming, for the moment, somebody. [...] And this need is not the proles' alone. Witness the T-shirts and carryalls stamped with the logo of The New York Review of Books, which convey the point "I read hard books," or printed with portraits of Mozart and Haydn and Beethoven, which assure the world, "I am civilized."
On why some people deliberately avoid logos: "X people are independent-minded, free of anxious regard for popular shibboleths, loose in carriage and demeanor. [...] Since there's no one they think worth impressing by mere appearance, X people tend to dress for themselves alone, which means they dress comfortably, and generally "down." [...] If the Xs ever descend to legible clothing, the words-unlike BUDWEISER or U.S.A. DRINKING TEAM-are original and interesting, although no comment on them is ever expected. Indeed, visibly to notice them would be bad form."
The TL;DR of the whole hypothesis by Fussell is that some people avoid having brands on their physical stuff because they don't want others to see a logo on an item; connect the logo to values of a corporation as part of that corporation's "brand identity"; and make assumptions about that person's personal identity based on that brand identity.
More examples in the winter fashion industry: supposedly, to wear a Patagonia jacket says you care about sustainability; to wear a Canada Goose jacket says you have a quality coat and can afford it; while to wear Arc'teryx means you're a pro outdoorsy bloke prepared for extreme weather. A lot of the price comes from people wanting to communicate stuff about their identity.
(Slightly off-topic, but the cheapest and most functional way to stay warm isn't a parka, but wearing multiple layers, e.g. a base layer, a puffer jacket, and a waterproof windbreaker.)
And a great way to advertise to your peer group that you're comfortable and wealthy enough to be able to choose to disengage from the capitalist rat race!
Well, where do you buy USB hubs in a world w/o capitalism and consumerism?
I mean, human nature is a shame right?
If you're dealing with off-brand or no-brand tools, you can still end up with something entirely usable but crappy. The prices usually tell most of the story.
Hand tools are sometimes more about feel than actual performance differences, but over the years I've come to appreciate (and be able to easily afford) the nicer stuff. It's nice not stripping Phillips head screws now that I've got really nice drivers with excellent sharp grippy tips in all the different sizes to properly fit. I grew up with the poorly-made fake chrome set of "jewelers" screw drivers that I'm sure many of y'all also learned on. I guess it makes me appreciate Wiha / PB Swiss / Wera / Felo / Klein MIUSA / custom boutique stuff (check out Scout Leather Co and CountyComm TPSK for some of the best precision multi-bit drivers I've used) more now.
On hand tools, Project Farm reviews those too, e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP4uECoH8cc for torque wrenches.
I admit that there are some made-up Chinese brands that are just slapping a random name on stuff coming out of the same few factories and selling on Amazon (then changing the name if they get bad reviews) for tools, but that's only really at the bottom of the market. Mid and top-tier tools do actually have measurable performance differences in many cases. Whether that's worth it to you is for y'all to decide. I just really hate ruining a project / breaking stuff because of bad tools that can't do the job, and I dislike supporting companies that make knock-off designs (i.e. they don't pay for their own R&D) out of cheaper, weaker metals then selling look-alikes at still-too-much-for-what-you're-getting prices. There's actually a name for this in the bicycle world: "bike shaped objects".
Life hack: use a better screw. Pozidriv is 60 years old!
Pro Tool Reviews did a big break down [0] a while ago that was very eye opening for me. It could easily be out of date by now but I had no clue how deep the groupings went at the time.
[0] https://www.protoolreviews.com/power-tool-manufacturers-who-...
Yes, this. There are a few exceptions, thing like ssd drives, ram, sd cards, etc which I buy from companies that I know manufacture their own. For random peripherals, I just make sure it's Amazon Prime so there won't be any hassle if/when I need to return them.
I make an exception for earphones. Unless you're buying off-brand, you can be pretty certain that you're not getting white labelled. I'm listening to an audio book on Shure TW2's w/ se215 heads attached... not much chance that's white labelled. Same for the lower quality but also lower profile Galaxy Buds Live that I use as well.
It is important to note that the cheapest, unbranded (or counterfeit) products may actually miss components. Looking at the PCB, you may see an empty slot where a MOV or a filtering cap should be, underspecced components or blatant counterfeits (no, that cap is not a Nichicon!). They may be from the same factories, but brand names usually don't get that low, and they have people on site making sure the factories don't pull these stunts on their batch.
" I’m writing this on an Apple MacBook Pro, and all I got was four lousy USB-C ports"
Is wildly inaccurate, as the author demonstrates in his conclusions where he explains that he's settled on a Thunderbolt hub.
Yes, they're more expensive, and yes, they're harder to find, but the fact is, for this type of use USB-C is kinda junky, and Thunderbolt is a much better option.
the Dell TB16 is just about the worst docking station I've ever used and that was Thunderbolt 3, and their USB-C equivalent (WD16 iirc) worked flawlessly.
Likely if you tore down the TB16 you would find the chip mentioned in TFA.
I tried using it on my Mac. But it's on some kind of an Apple blacklist and won't work on Macs. There was some way to enable it, by turning off system protection or some shit... But even then, you could not get all the functionality.
Quick Google Search. This is what I used to get it working, as much as one can consider it "working" https://github.com/rgov/Thunderbolt3Unblocker/releases
I have the TBT3-UDV and caldigit TS4 TBolt dock. They both rely on DC power supplies and higher quality components (intel NIC, for example). Both have been very stable over the last year for the TS4 and 3 yrs for the TBT3.
I have a gigabit connection and have been using the CalDigit TS3+ since it came out. Zero issues, zero problems with it stepping down to 100 Mbps or anything else. I have GigE plugged in, two monitors, two large disk arrays, sound, and usually a couple other random things. The monitors and all peripherals work flawlessly, wake flawlessly from sleep, etc.
Every time I test the speed, it's around 940 Mbps, which is about the max that a gig fiber connection can actually push to you. Every time.
By contrast, a lot of my IT clients have tried to get by with the crappy cheap USB-C hubs or docks mentioned in this article, and without exception, they always completely suck. Eventually, they start listening to me and they buy a quality dock instead, and then their problems magically cease.
But the TS3+ DisplayPort & Thunderbolt monitor support is flaky/buggy and breaks.
Sure, it also uses an RTL8153, and might need the Realtek drivers to work (out of luck if you are on macOS 11+) but it was the first USB hub that I used forever, where everything just worked.
I don't use it for PD, I don't trust that on any hub.
+ Belkin's thunderbolt dock - Ethernet is a mess and takes down my network switch when my macbook goes to sleep. This seems like a common issue. The fix is to "unplug ethernet when putting laptop to sleep".
+ Anker's bigger usb c dock - actually this one works for me, though I am using it with an XPS 15.
+ The spouse has a CalDigit 3. She says it has no issues.
I had the same initial hub as the author, and like the author, it died. I think it was branded UGreen or something. I've currently got a Baesus. Likely it's all the same trash.
I had a Dell USB-C dock last year which worked quite well, but it's a chunky thing that isn't great for travelling.
I wish there was a similar guide that ends with finding a product that actually performs. It would be great to see Apple or something try to address this issue without having to buy three dongles.
You'll get far faster transfer speeds, more ports, charging (and at full speed), proper display output (dual 4K/60hz) and better components/reliability. The CalDigit TS3 Plus[1] is what I've used for several years - first with a 2019 Intel MBP and now with my new 2021 M1 Pro MBP. It's pricey compared to a USB-C dongle, but rock solid.
[1]: https://amzn.to/38sFDZk
I imagine they're being hit by the chip shortage that impacted so many other companies. I'm still waiting on a Raspberry Pi, myself.
https://www.startech.com/en-eu/cards-adapters/tb3cdk2dpue
Docks are always a hit or miss thing. I had Dell docks before, also ~350 eur or so, and they consistently failed to wake up the external screens on resume from sleep. Same screens worked just fine on the Startech.
In exchange you get a lot more expensive hubs, stiff, expensive cables, and a much more limited computer compatibility.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQpxAvjD_30
I saw this a few months ago and it really lays bare a lot of the crazy stuff we've just got used to with amazon
Here we are.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9645013
I got a hub with an external power connector that plugs into wall and it charges my iphone at trickle charger rates.
Meanwhile my "crappy" apple charger seems to blast my iphone up in no time.
One cost me MORE (the hub/dock).
Here we are 7 years later, and the SAME lighting cable apple has had for 10 years (!!) is more sturdy, has great low latency (if you compare to USB-C for music making the difference is crazy), has fantastic reliable power delivery.
I mean, after 10 years you'd think the new standards would be absolutely crushing Apple's old tech.
But I can't get the low latency on USB-C for audio I get on lighting (anyone know why? Both are wires) 10+ years later.
It's maddening. And the power delivery and speeds of USB-C/USB3 are just crazily all over the map. You can plug into a blue USB3 port and go no faster than you did on an old port!
How many bad USB 2 Hubs did you have to deal with?
When chips die, that's not something the standard could affect.
When a USB to Ethernet converter happens to be on the same circuit board as an actual hub, the USB standard isn't responsible for the Ethernet part.
The screen connections are pretty much just passthrough. That's the narrowest you can get.
And it doesn't sound like the USB ports on the hubs had any problems.
If you split things up by standard, you'd have a USB hub that always works, with a flaky ethernet converter plugged in one port and a flaky HDMI converter plugged in another port.
The last 5+ years as an Amazon customer have me feeling this way.
> Realtek RTL8153
Could the Realtek issues be related to power?
I have a Tbolt dock which is powered using a DC barrel jack (6.5amps @ 20V). The comparison is not great as the dock (TBT3-UDZ) is not a USB C dock and uses the Intel i211 nic.
The author appears to have found stability with the Anker PowerExpand 8-in-1, which has the buck converter with power management components.
I've had terrible experiences with the Satechi Multiport Adapter V2 and ICY BOX USB-C type adapters.
I suspect that the issues can typically narrow down with any dock to bandwidth or power.
Though, I myself had misfortune buying broken RTL8153 based ethernet NICs. Mismatched coupling capacitors, PCB shorts, possibly broken firmwares.
40%-30% people who do EE in China are just above the Arduino level.
Chinese engineering companies can make good hardware if you pay them, and give time to fix self induced issues coming from rushed development schedules, but in that case, they are not really that ahead from any other EE companies around the world.
One of the issues with the RTL8153 NIC is (as a sibling commenter points out) that on M1 Macs, you are confined to the CDC-ECM driver. RTL8153 with this driver usually cap at ~700MBit and cause a lot of CPU load (usually restricted to the efficiency cores, but it's still pretty bad anyway).
For USB docks, I can still understand the choice. But IMO this is inexcusable for Thunderbolt docks. You can tunnel PCI-E, so nothing holds dock makers from hanging a good NIC with well-supported drivers on the PCI-E bus. Some higher-end Thunderbolt Docks do this AFAIK. The Apple Thunderbolt 2 Ethernet adapter uses a Broadcom NIC on the PCI-E bus and can reach 1000MBit without causing high CPU loads. Unfortunately, it requires a Thunderbolt 3 -> 2 adapter, which is more expensive than the Ethernet adapter itself.
If you can find an adapter that uses the Realtek 8156 chipset, which I believe the CalDigit TS4 uses, macOS will utilize the NCM driver and your performance will be rock solid.
ECM is a very primitive USB protocol for ethernet, whereas NCM is a more modern and performant one. NCM is to ECM as UASP is to BOT mode, if you're familiar with USB external drives.