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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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'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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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...'
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
>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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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'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 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.
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.
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/.
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.
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".
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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've gone through a number of Thunderbolt docks over the last few years. I tend to prefer docks to hubs because you tend to use your laptop at several fixed positions, each of which might have 1 or more monitors, a network cable, accessories (eg keyboard, mouse, camera) and so on. It's easier to just plug in one cable from the dock to the Macbook that'll do everything including power it.
A good example of this is the Caldigit TS4 [1]. All the ports you could possibly want. Here's what I've learned.
First and foremost, you'll be surprised at how many issues come down to a given cable being bad. It's gotten to the point that whenever I buy any sort of cable I typically buy 2 or even 3 at the same time because I assume 1 will be bad or will go bad.
Second, also to do with cables, don't use any cable to connect from your dock to your laptop longer than a foot. These cables that can take power and full bandwidth for displays and accesories are the most technically demanding. Keep them as short as possible. And again, have spares.
Third, while I'm a traditionalist and like a wired connection (and thus an Ethernet port), it's really optional now, particularly at home where you have some control over the network. Like I can get easily get 500+ Mbps over Wifi at home. This of course assumes a sufficient Internet connection but if you don't have that then Ehternet is even less necessary.
If you have flickering display in particular, your first instinct should be to blame the cable.
I mostly agree with this, but not necessarily the part about the Ethernet connection. If you do a significant number of meetings with video conferencing, you'll be much better off with a wired connection where the latency and jitter are both lower than over the typical WiFi. It's one of the easiest things you can do to improve how your face and voice appear to your colleagues.
I've had some mediocre luck with USBC cables, paying premium for stuff that has the same below-spec performance as the bulk I got from monoprice a few years ago at a fraction of the cost. How do you evaluate 'nice' cables before shelling out money for garbage?
I also prefer docks to hubs, for the same reasons you mentioned. There are still some pretty big gaps which need to be addressed before we can use a single cable for everything.
First, Mac OS still doesn't support DisplayPort MST. If you have two or more non-Thunderbolt monitors, you'll need to use more than one port.
Second, many companies require their employees to use tokens such as Yubikeys, which are USB devices plugged into a laptop operating on human touch. Even if you dock your laptop, you will need to keep it within arm's reach so you can touch the Yubikey. You could remove the Yubikey from the laptop and plug it into your dock, but that defeats the purpose of docking.
Ultimately, I just want more desk space, and I consider both the dock and the laptop to be clutter.
>If you have two or more non-Thunderbolt monitors, you'll need to use more than one port
Is this still true with TB4? TB4 docks can have 3 downstream Thunderbolt ports and afaik each of them can power a single DisplayPort display without MST being involved, and without the display having to be a 'Thunderbolt' display, which I think just meant that they had a TB3 hub in to allow daisychaining.
So for things like iPhone cables, I just buy whatever nylon-braided cable Anker is selling now. I've been using Anker cables for years now and they've been reliable.
But for things like TB and DP cables, I don't have any particular brand recommendations. I'm not sure it matters. I just find something with a good rating on Amazon and buy 2 of them. Whatever gets labelled as Amazon Basics has thus far seemingly worked well enough.
Hmm, so out of curiosity I looked up both, Apple’s are actually cheaper per centimeter than MP, but don’t sell shorter overall cheaper options if that’s what you can use.
I hear you on the cable. Even with the dock I got working, I was still banging my head against the wall for a bit until I tried a different Thunderbolt cable.
I wonder how much e-waste this USB-C bullshit idea generated. It's not even a one-off, "early adopter" problem, considering that even now it's hard to buy something that actually works and you have to churn through many attempts before getting lucky.
In contrast, I can't remember the last time I bought a USB-A, HDMI or Ethernet cable/peripheral that didn't work, partly because those specs are self-contained and simple enough that even the cheapest manufacturer will typically do a good enough job.
Big picture, USB-C is set to considerably reduce ewaste given that more and more consumer electronics products are standardizing on it as a charging solution, eliminating custom chargers and letting manufacturers get away with not including a charger. This is likely to be accelerated by regulations in the EU. The last time we had this level of standardization was probably the AA battery. Not saying things are perfect (because they obviously aren't) but computers - and especially finicky docks and high performance cables - are just one part of a much much bigger market for USB-C.
I still get the same issue with HDMI cables when you want to do more than 4K (like 4K60 4:4:4) with a cable that's more than half a meter long. Cable length apparently significantly impacts throughput.
It's even worse on Amazon when a seller will list multiple lengths of the same cable, as there'll be reviews about how this works great for (e.g.) Dolby Vision on an Apple TV 4K, but that was for the short cable. That doesn't imply the longer version of the same cable will work for the same application.
Yeah, a perfect example are all the people in this thread recommending Thunderbolt devices while a bunch of us sit here and type away on our Ryzen or Threadripper powered machines.
I have a laptop that is powerful as a Ryzen 5x00, which is quiet and uses very little power. I can take it with me in my backpack and hook it up to my three workspaces by plugging one Thunderbolt over USB-C cable. (I use a Startech Thunderbolt Dock, which hasn't had any issues, except the dislikable Realtek NIC.)
I don't want to go back to the workstation tower life. Unfortunately, I still have to keep around a Ryzen machine for CUDA. But it is loud (even with Noctua fans), eats large amounts of power, and is completely non-portable.
The real disappointment is Intel who have kept an iron grip on Thunderbolt for way over a decade and prevented everyone from distributing Thunderbolt without an Intel CPU for no technical reason at all.
Ironically, my older USB-A (2.0 and 1.1), HDMI and Ethernet cables and hubs all work fine, but every time I buy a new version (consumer/retail) there is always something wrong with them.
Bought a USB-A hub because I needed a few extra ports for low speed devices; didn't work... turns out all the D+ and D- lines had a very high resistance to the point there the USB protocol just wouldn't work. HDMI cable, didn't work for anything beyond 720p. Ethernet cable, didn't work beyond 100Mbit, turned out to be a crappy CCS/CCA cable, said copper on the packaging, had copper in the connectors. Cutting the cable showed it was just a clad cable and the ends were dipped so you can't see it in the connector.
And returning them, the replacements almost always had the same issue because it was a bad design in the first place and you just had to get lucky that you got the "least broken" one in the batch. It wasn't a price point thing either, all of them are just crap until you get to the "we cannot afford to shit on our brand name" products.
Once you go over 1080p, I found that most (>50%) HDMI cables that advertise HDMI 2.0 (or even 2.1) either do not work at all, or have constant cutouts at 4K@60. Also I found that there is no correlation between how nice cables look, how expensive they are and how well they work.
The only HDMI cables that I had 100% success with, were the ones that came bundled with A/V equipment, even if some of them look like bottom shelf stuff.
USB-A: there are so many crap usb-A cables around that either a) don’t charge b) don’t reliably send data or c) work, but with massive voltage drops leading to very slow charging.
HDMI: HDMI will silently degrade to lower versions of the spec over bad connections, so it might just be that the bad cables are invisible.
One piece of e waste I had was an entire MacBook Air which was bricked by a USB-C hub with power delivery which Dane highly recommended. Apple fixed that problem by updating their firmware. Apparently even Apple has trouble with USB-C.
> I’m slightly concerned about the fact that some of the products use electrolytic capacitors. Those hubs get pretty warm, even if you’re not routing your laptop’s power through the hub, and electrolytic capacitors don’t like warm environments, and that’ll significantly shorten their life. However, that’s probably negligible, since lots of resistors are also designed just barely around their load ratings, all the chips run amazingly hot, … it just feels like another product family intended to be used barely one year until it dies, just to end up in the landfill.
Drying out of electrolytic capacitors is a single largest cause of failure of electronic devices these days (apart from physical damage). My friend is in the business of restoring vintage tape recorders and audio amplifiers (from 80s and 90s) and what he does is he just replaces all electrolytes without even looking at them. This usually brings these machines back to life immediately. Resistors usually can handle the heat for extended periods of time: even if some of them bear marks of overheating, they are mostly fine.
> Ah, so it’s a Realtek RTL8153! I always found Intel NICs to be way more reliable and stable, but okay, that’s a reasonably popular chip.
Intel doesn't make USB ethernet controllers, they only do PCIe. Realtek has a near monopoly on USB Ethernet, the only other supplier I can think of is SMSC/Microchip LAN7500, and I'm not sure it's any better.
> There’s also a second USB hub, but only a 2.0 one, same vendor, but 0x2817 as the product ID. That slower hub was used for the SD and microSD card reader.
That's the same hub, USB 3.0 just bolts on to USB 2.0 additively & the USB 2.0 world exists in parallel. Both hubs are contained in the same physical chip.
On the desktop, on Windows, the RTL8153 hasn't given me an issue. However, I've heard bad things. My last upgrade had an Intel I225-V, so unfortunately, I cannot report on longevity. The Intel NIC, however? Thumbs up.
My main pain point with USB-C is all the confusion and missing specs. Often, advertising uses Thunderbolt and USB-C interchangeably. It is not. Don’t label my USB-C + DisplayPort hub “Thunderbolt” when it isn’t.
And then there’s the specs. Which DisplayPort version does my laptop support? The answer may surprise you. I have experience with Dell laptops. Rather recent devices still only support DP 1.2 over USB-C. How can this be? GPU and everything supports DP 1.4, and have been for years.
Because most DisplayPort over USB-C equipment only carries two DP lanes, using DP 1.2 massively limits the possible display configurations. Adapters that forego USB SuperSpeed+ for more DP lanes are extremely rare. Finding them is next to impossible too, because who puts that in the specs?
With DP 1.4 you can easily power two 1440p DP 1.4 displays using one USB-C connection and still have USB SuperSpeed+. How nice that would be. I don’t need expensive Thunderbolt devices!
USB-C can do everything and it works well. However, for consumers, it’s just a big bag of incompatibility and opacity.
> My main pain point with USB-C is all the confusion and missing specs.
Worse is that, to a search engine, every USB product is exactly the same. Search engines take very specific queries and overgeneralize them to the point of uselessness. In the case of USB cables, basically every conductor fits--yes, even the god damned Romex. Some hyperbole sure, but it's hard to find a cable that can do more than charge a phone. "Smart" search engine "AI" has "learned" that SuperSpeed = USB = Wire = Romex. Auh god it's hard to put down the bitter sarcasm.
Having to click hundreds of product pages to look for specifics that a search engine stripped away is hell. It's not even like it's limited to USB. Try finding memory... surprise! Just like everything is a USB.... everything is a DDR. ECC, the very specific thing you need, is DDR. It literally doesn't matter if you put ECC in your query. Because DDR = DDR.
Specs don't help sell the product because search engines will take all of that spec sheet and decide it's exactly "USB."
And don't get me started on bad product pages that claim to sell "SuperSpeed 480 Mbit/s charging cables" Yup, Optimized. What does a search engine learn about that product page? Some people buy it therefore: relevance +9999. "I was tricked" never makes it back to the engine. You can't even flag a product page as inaccurate anymore.
I'm so exhausted that I don't want to buy anything anymore. Search engines were better when they gave you two results for some queries. At least then you knew that the engine wasn't capable of servicing the query in a useful way. You used to be able to hone your "search skill." No longer. You don't need to because now we have learning machines that... can't tell the difference between "gave up in futility" and "found what I was looking for."
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'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.
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.
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.
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 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 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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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!
This runs much much deeper than just USB-C hubs. Me and a couple of friends dabbled in getting a product produced in China 10 years ago and while investigating competition and really digging deep into aliexpress, alibaba etc. We found out that almost every single brand who doesn't own their own production is like this, and that's almost every single one. To name a few this same thing is true for Golf balls, pillows, every imaginable electronic peripherals, clothing, tools. We got to a point where my colleague was able to sniff down the original product/manufacturer for every single product we researched. Is this good or bad? idk, all i know is that this is how the world works these days..
The Satechi one creates "broadcast storms" [1] that messed up my home network if left it unplugged from the computer but powered on and with the ethernet cable connected.
I have an Anker one now, I guess I should expect the same.
I also have a Dell D6000, which is rarely reviewed but has been solid.
I have the same experience with the Lenovo USB-C Dock Gen 2 (also uses a Realtek NIC). It would knock out our router (or maybe, I can't recall, the router would just block my NIC).
I saw this too from a Satechi hub! When connected to power and Ethernet but not a computer, it would crash my home network switch, requiring a power cycle on that. Maddening.
I had similar issues with one of these USB-C hubs (not sure if it was Satechi or just a similar PCB inside) - just shutting the lid of my laptop was enough to cause it to start going nuts but only after the Mac actually stopped talking to the hub at all. That was a fun one to figure out, I'd lose internet some small period of time (but not always the same amount) after switching from my work Mac to my PC, both hardwired.
Also note that if you have a laptop that supports Thunderbolt, you need a docking station that supports Thunderbolt. If you have a laptop that supports Alternate Video Mode, you need a docking station that supports Alternate Video Mode. AFAIK no laptop supports both modes, and very, very few docking station supports both. (you'll usually get reduced features if you have a mismatch; for instance, you'll get just one monitor, or two monitors at low resolution, or no video out at all, just the additional USB/ethernet ports)
My work laptop has Thunderbolt, my personal laptop does not. So this is an issue for me. I have a Plugable TBT-UDZ, which is one of relatively few docking stations that supports both. I can therefore use two 2560x1440 60Hz displays through either laptop.
This isn't without issue. My work PC (Windows) will every other week or so BSOD when connected to it, but, well, it's Windows. My personal personal computer (linux) will not crash, but every other week or so will simply refuse to recognize the docking station. So I have to unplug the docking station and plug it back in. It's annoying, but not the end of the world. I believe these two issues are the same issue, but I haven't bothered to confirm that. I don't have a Mac to try it on.
Also note that if you have a laptop that supports Thunderbolt, you need a docking station that supports Thunderbolt. If you have a laptop that supports Alternate Video Mode, you need a docking station that supports Alternate Video Mode. AFAIK no laptop supports both modes, and very, very few docking station supports both.
As far as I understand, Thunderbolt 3 needs to support 4x PCI Express 3.0, DisplayPort 1.2, and USB 3.1 Gen 2 [1] (slides 8, 10-15). And Intel advertises that their Thunderbolt 3 controllers can switch to DisplayPort-only alt-mode [1].
All the Thunderbolt 3/4 Macs that I have had (Intel and M1) definitely supported DP alt-mode (I hooked up a 4k@60Hz that way for years) and also USB-C docks that allocate lanes for DP alt-mode and USB 3.1. Obviously, Thunderbolt docks also work.
Are you sure? From what I've seen, it seems common for laptops to support the combination of Thunderbolt and DisplayPort Alternate Mode. (Both my MacBook and my Thinkpad T480s have ports like this.)
Personal anecdote but I’ve found many thunderbolt or USB-based displays seem to suffer from the plug and unplug issue. I’ve had the most success historically using the DisplayPort over USB-C spec with an 8K-compatible cable (that means it’s the latest spec version): https://www.displayport.org/displayport-over-usb-c/
Outside of that… some USB-C based docks likely use the above standard internally, plus USB-C spec support for driverless Ethernet, hubs, etc.
That said, there’s always something to complain about with these accessories and cables, it seems…
The thunderbolt protocol is backwards compatible, so a USB-C dock should work when plugged into a laptop’s Thunderbolt port. CalDigit has a USB-C dock and one of the biggest “features” they push is its compatibility.
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.
Why do people buy laptops that don't have this stuff already on it?
I run an engineering course and it's almost comical how often students have to set aside their $2000 Macbooks and use the desktop workstations because they forgot their dongles at home.
My Thinkpad has 6 USB ports (2 USB 3.0), SDCard, DisplayPort, VGA, ethernet and also e-sata and Firewire which I've never used.
Because it's convenient to carry around thin and light notebooks. Especially the ones that flip around to a tablet, making it easy to sketch ideas with a stylus. In addition, it becomes annoying to plug in multiple cables every time you wish to dock. USB, audio, power, ethernet, and video. USB-C is much more convenient when it works. I went through a similar churn as the author and finally settled on a StarTech-branded hub that has few bugs. Now, when I want to switch my setup between my work and personal laptops, I just unplug a single cable and switch devices. I can even connect my phone to the dock if I need to type a lot in an app, download a lot of data to it, or connect external storage.
Honest answer: Apple is a lifestyle brand, however they manage to offer a superior product to the layman because they have tight control over both hardware and software codevelopment. In my experience, people tend to also like Apple hardware because Apple stores are ubiquitous, so when you need a repair done, you just take it to your local mall and get it fixed rather than mailing it away to Lenovo and hoping for the best.
Out of curiosity, in your engineering course, what are students expected to used to their own computers for? In my experience, any engineering course with labs that would require dongles supply desktop computers anyway. Your school doesn't have desktops in the classroom right? What equipment are you interfacing with that would be easily both mac and pc compatible anyway?
It's astounding how difficult it is to find non-garbage build quality on, well, pretty much anything. Even just for something as basic as a charger, Apple is probably the only company you can rely on to not use third-rate electrolytic capacitors. Maybe Anker too.
I've had a lot of "just works" with thinkpads' pre-loaded windows installs.
Every other windows laptop brand, not so much.
Mileage will of course vary - any thinkpad centric thread on here has a bunch of people with experiences like mine and a bunch of horror stories, after all.
"I want it to just work" is a very subjective phrase. I think you'll find the majority of users have very different use cases for technology than you do.
Also, try to read past the first sentence before you downvote me.
People prefer to use their own development environments, and the microcontroller family we have designed assignments around (Atmel AVR) has a cross-platform toolchain.
I got a new laptop for work that has: 1 USB3 type A, 1 USB-C, 1 Thunderbolt4 in USB-C connetor, 1 HDMI, 1 audio jack, and 1 Power connector. No ethernet. My boss bought me a caldigit element hub to be able to connect mouse and keyboard... We were all disappointed when we realized there was not enough "normal" USB ports.
Because I don't use any of that stuff and don't care. I can plug my macbook in with a single cable and it charges and runs the display. I will literally never need VGA, e-sata, or firewire. I'd put just the aesthetics of the device over having useless ports.
I've been through this rodeo myself. I've been happily using for years docks made by Hyper over USB-C (and now over TB4). When on the go, I use the official Apple dongle for HDMI and USB. If I need more ports, Hyper and Anker both make USB-C hubs that are very solid and actually work.
I totally agree with the author, most of the products on the market are garbage, and many are the same garbage with different names. To a large degree to solve this issue you need to stop shopping on Amazon. Almost everything listed on Amazon not made by Anker doesn't work. Either buy directly for Apple, or buy from directly from small companies that focus on solving accessories for the Apple market (e.g. Rain Design, 12South, Hyper, CalDigit, et al). This is definitely not limited to USB-C hubs, and encompasses nearly all products. Buying direct from high-quality companies is always better than trying your luck with random brand-named Aliexpress specials sold through Amazon.
I've found the Macbook hubs from Hyper to be quite reliable over the years. And in addition, they're the only ones that can output to 2 monitors at once (one TB3 port, one HDMI) with a reasonable resolution and refresh rate, AND allow you to plug a charger into the non-TB3 Type C port. I haven't found anything else with similar specs in the same form factor.
I got a USB-C Satechi hub, for some inexplicable reason, the webcam didn't work and other devices were super flaky. Maybe faulty unit? I returned it anyway.
I got another USB-C hub with HDMI and it didn't really work well with my monitor -- it turns out my monitor is 3440x1440, but has an HDMI port which does not support that resolution at 60Hz, so the HDMI is unusable. Oh well, not the USB-C hub's fault, but it still turns out I can't use one with this monitor.
So I got a Thunderbolt one. But that didn't work because it's Thunderbolt 4, and my laptop is only Thunderbolt 3. Of course, both are identical cables, and Dell's website doesn't explain this anywhere -- I only figured it out thanks to Reddit.
Okay, so I got another Thunderbolt one -- TB3 this time. That does mostly work -- except that when the laptop goes to sleep, the hub disconnects the keyboard that goes through it, so pressing keys won't wake up the laptop again. Oddly, the hub DOES feed power to the keyboard, it's just the data connection to the laptop that goes to sleep. I've to open the lid and press the internal keyboard. Meanwhile, the keyboard's power LED remains on.
I also have a monitor light connected to the hub, and it causes the opposite issue: the hub keeps powering the light when the laptop goes to sleep, so the light stays on. If the laptop turns of for any reason during the night, the light turns back on and STAYS on after that.
USB-C is a blessing and a curse. It looks like everything is interoperable, but it rarely is, and it's not at all obvious what products work together and which ones don't. Some cables charge my JBL USB-C speaker, but most don't. Some cables are Thunderbolt, some aren't. Some work with the webcam, some don't. Half these issues I have a mild idea why, half I don't.
I buy computers with the ports I need. No need for a hub at all. Even my MBA (from 2015) has an SD slot and regular USB ports. This USB-C only thing Apply tried was a big mistake.
When somebody hands you files on a flash drive you need an adapter, where I just plug it in and go. When you take an SD card from a camera, or want to flash an RPi OS on it or whatever, you need an adapter. I just plug it in and go. When connecting a monitor, you need an adapter. I just use a standard HDMI cable and go. USB-C users are the ones that need a bunch of cables and adapters. This may change if the Apple fantasy of every device in production switching to USB-C ever comes true.
I have one of those Anker x-in-one hubs and it works well, minus the Ethernet which it capped at 300Mbps due to [checks notes] a USB 2.0 interconnection.
Why?!? I ended up getting a separate sub $20 USB-C to Ethernet adapter from a random Amazon brand called Uni. Get full gig, every time despite it having a Realtek 8153 chip in it. So, there might be more to it.
There's a comment only visible via showdead from somebody who claims to be working in China and that the 8153 is actually fine except most of their employers' competitors mess up powering it properly, and it's a cheap enough chip to not be particularly happy when that happens.
I have no means of verifying this, but it seems at least a plausible hypothesis.
I'm totally buying this. It's 2022, I am pretty sure Realtek knows how to make a reliable gigabitEthernet chip, and at the same time it's also possible that OEMs cut corners in power design.
Many laptops can't handle more than USB 2.0 when outputting display over the same port. Those that can need a certain protocol (too lazy to look up). There's a better protocol that allows both, but now you're in the $100+ range of hub/docks that can handle it.
You are thinking about USB-C Alt Mode, which is a way for displayport to go over USB-C.
To get 4k60 + USB3.1, you either need USB-C Alt Mode with DP1.4+ (supported by almost zero monitors), or Thunderbolt-3 (supported by fantastically expensive monitors).
It's much more economical to live with USB2.0 for your keyboards and mice, and get a separate USB3.1 hub if you need that.
I was originally hoping to have gigabit Ethernet on the same monitor hub, but settled on the 300mbps actual throughout USB 2.0 allowed. At least it provides reliable low latency.
I'd guess that this might be related to USB A (2.0) being only rated for 2.5 W (up to 7.5 W for the "Battery Charging" specification), while USB C needs to support at least 15 W (up to 240 W) ?
This exemplifies the issues I see with a lot of this stuff.
The other day, I was looking at TB4 hubs, and noticed that Every. Single. One. had the exact same layout of ports, with different cases around them. The price range was damn wide, too.
The different one was CalDigit. That does seem to be a good company; though pricey.
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 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.
> 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.
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.
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.
I was surprised such a technical person wasn't aware of the ODM manufacturing so common. Even if you just search a hub in Amazon or eBay you'll see similar items with the ~same~ different name.
The only difference you'd might expect is different QA tiers. But that's not assured.
USB-C is one of the worst in terms of compliance. He didn't even mention the complexity of getting 4k@60hz WITH USB3.0 speeds...
Anyway, for anyone who wants a single plug for Apple devices, any Thunderbolt 3/4 would be more reliable.
It's more expensive, but TB requires more certification and able to pass enough bandwidth for decent performance (even 5k@60hz with USB 3.0).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Thunderbolt based products should almost always be better than USB. TB controllers are higher cost and there is a certification process for TB based products. One of the key values of TB is providing a consistent product that just works with other TB products. The downside of TB is that because of the higher costs, fewer manufacturers build TB based products.
USB and the ecosystem is a complete mess. The naming system is horrific (and it keeps changing retroactively). You've got different connector types with different revisions. Controllers and products that are selective on what part of the "standards" they will comply with. The aftermarket cable industry is shady. On top of all that, now you're adding in different power delivery levels.
That's why I am currently on a minimalistic (almost passive) USB-C dock... it has PD 65W passthrough, DisplayPort passthrough and USB 2.0 + 100Mbit ethernet (those are the limitations).
like this, but DP only (was cheaper, but currently unavailable):
https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Matters-Multiport-Adapter-Display...
For macOS at least, the cause of this is the ECM driver that is used for the Realtek 8153. If you're lucky enough to find a device that has the Realtek 8156 chipset, which I believe the CalDigit TS4 uses, macOS will use the NCM driver and you'll be totally fine. ECM is a more primitive USB ethernet protocol and NCM is a more advanced one. The difference is similar to UASP vs BOT mode for USB external storage.
Since the author only shares complaints and no solutions, I figured I’d share an option.
I’ve been using an HP Thunderbolt G2 dock with my M1 Pro and I get a 95% success rate.
The 5% failure rate is, I suspect, linked to my LG monitor more than the dock itself. I get some flickering sometimes that is resolved by restarting the monitor or restarting the dock. Happens 1 in 20 connections maybe. I also use the monitor with a windows computer and there is some funky color issue going on where if I go back to windows after using the Mac everything is at 200% saturation and 1% brightness or something like that.
Other than that, Ethernet is fast, I connect to 2 monitors at different refresh rates and I have all the ports I need with just one cable connected to the laptop.
Seconded on the HP G2 dock, but with Windows laptops.
I use it to switch between my work and home laptops, and it has worked without issue. Currently running 3 monitors with it (2 1440p 1 1080p), gigabit ethernet, and at least 5 usb devices.
I'm currently waiting to get a Dell UltraSharp 27" 4K U2723QE delivered. It's
~$630 and has a USB 3.2 Gen2 Hub:
- HDMI 2.2
- DisplayPort 1.4 Input
- DisplayPort 1.4 Output
- USB-C Upstream (PD 90W + DP 1.4 Alt Mode)
- USB-C Upstream (KVM)
- USB-C Downstream
- 5x USB-A Downstream
- Audio line-out
- LAN (RJ-45)
As far as I can tell it has the best connectivity and specs of any mainstream consumer monitor under $1k. It really doesn't feel worth it to spend $250-400 on a dock given the price point of these monitors.
It also doesn't have a power brick, which makes cable management a bit easier too.
I've got that one at a steep discount. Works great on a MacBook using 1 USB-C cable for charging, network and display. The only downside is on laptops without Displayport stream compression there's not enough bandwidth for 4k@60Hz and USB3 5Gbps so you have to choose 30Hz or USB2.
I have found that Macs are far less tolerant of USB-C devices than other machines. I have crap dongles that work with PCs, Chromebooks, even Chromecast and Nintendo's, but not correctly with a Mac. I've seen the same with Intel and M1 Macs.
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.
I bought a DisplayLink dock for my ubuntu laptops (2015 XPS and 2021 XPS) and it doesn't really work with either. It's quite maddening.
It requires a strange driver I would've preferred to avoid. I tried a strange workaround on both and neither really works; one still doesn't display through the DisplayPort or HDMI, the other doesn't work with the M.2 2280 built into the dock.
DisplayLink is proprietary crap. There are apparently drivers for Mac, Windows, and ChromeOS, and a (open?) driver for the old, outdated 1.0 version. It won't work at all for anything recent.
Despite the similarity in name, it has _nothing_ to do with DisplayPort. AFAICT, does a compressed image thing over USB, like VNC. But proprietary, of course. I was also tricked into buying one by the name and was surprised when it didn't work with Linux.
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 must be some USB-C unicorn as I can't think of ever having any issues.
I have had a couple of USB-C hubs and they have worked for both me and my partner. All my work machines are USB-C only and literally the only issue I can remember is where in one conference room the USB-C to HDMI output only went to 2 of the 3 screens on the walls but I think that was something unrelated to the USB-C connection.
Now I don't push my USB-C hubs hard but did run ethernet, HDMI, and USB-A device or two pretty often and everything worked as expected.
The author's main complaint is that the network was being downgraded to 100baseTX. If you aren't doing a lot of heavy local network activity, you might not notice if you are being downgraded.
Since much of my USB-C hub usage was during COVID and work at home, I did do a ton of speed tests and don't remember seeing any issues with being downgraded but if it was random then I might not have noticed.
> 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.
It seems like if you bought an accessory that's just a PCB (which means excluding headphones, storage, etc) within the last 5 years, there's like a 90% chance of it being dropshipped.
At this point, I've just given up and ordered right from AliExpress. I can't even name any good accessory manufacturers off the top of my head.
I just knew that this — like every — article about USB-C hubs wouldn’t mention a single USB-C hub.
A hub is an accessory that turns one port into several of the same kind. Everyone understood this back in the USB-A days.
What this article discusses are port replicators. You might wanna call them docks although a pedant might take issue with that.
To the best of my knowledge, six freakin years after USB-C came to the market, there are no real USB-C hubs available. Some Thunderbolt hubs, but not simple USB-C.
It is super frustrating that it’s basically impossible to find good tech (in some categories). How is the author surprised about this though? Surely they knew about white-label alibaba tech, right? It is almost impossible to avoid it. It’s been this way for at least 5 years. I can pick a ‘white-label’ product by sight now. I suggest everyone develops the same intuition and avoids these disappointments.
I am doing these Type-C hubs, and other small stuff peripherals for a living.
My suggestion, don't look stuff retail, and don't look big brands, even Dell.
Pretty much any "brand business" had zero RnD. Their only feedback channel is the RMA rate. If it gets too bad, they just change the supplier.
Instead, I really suggest going the other way. Smaller makers have no money for big marketing, nor buying ready designs, so they hire people, and let them work until they make something sellable.
House brands often have better QC, because they are already very constrained by their pricing, and RMA will kill them. Thus, they have incentive to spend few extra thousand dollars in engineer work hours than to deal with $100k in returns themselves.
Can you please suggest some examples for brand business, and small makers? I'd like to compare them for contrast bit I don't know where to start. Particularly I don't seem to be able to distinguish rebranded whitelabels and actual small makers.
But the white-label stuff is so popular because it’s a ready-made product. Benefits (compared to DIY) include:
+ No RnD costs (staff and space, failed designs, prototyping)
+ No plant and equipment required
+ Smaller number of units required initially (no other outlays, so the number you have to sell is smaller)
+ Smaller time between investment and return
Negatives:
+ No innovation in the product
+ No control over manufacturing (quality, methods & materials used)
+ Higher risk of returns from customers (can’t control quality)
+ Higher risk of hurting or killing customers (product malfunction)
+ Loss of reputation due to the above three points (well deserved)
+ Inability to update design based on feedback
+ No control over price. You are at the mercy of your people in China after you’re established.
+ more. It’s a shitty practice if I’m brutally honest.
My point is: those upsides are appealing to both big and small players. No big upfront costs? I can just whack a label on a shiny piece of shit and make 2x ROI? Sweet! Reputation? Couldn’t care less, I’m small-time and can switch up if anything hits the fan.
What is an example house brand? Amazon? I understand your reasoning and it makes sense, but I'm not sure what brands that actually means, or how to find them.
This article makes me feel very good about almost always being several years behind the edge when it comes to hardware.
By the time I get around to using these devices, hopefully this kind of crap will get shaken out, and I'll have a nice stable of salvage accessories to choose from.
For now, I'll stick to my (also salvaged) MBP with regular USB, audio jacks, MagSafe, HDMI, SD card reader, and an extra millimeter or two of thickness. :)
the one problem is that when I look up the price of Caldigit and other brands that HN is vouching for they are $400~$500 range.
I would need to burn through 8~9 $50~60 range alternatives that allegedly "suck" before I see returns, and by that time we would have 3 to 4 iterations of macbook.
I guess if you like peace of mind then this makes sense but I hope nobody drops $500+ on a hub from reading HN comments, the "crappy" ones described work fine, it just that it won't last and creates waste but it would take quite a long time to do so.
But they don't work just fine? I mean maybe they do for your use case, but I've had functionality issues with cheap docks/dongles. Things like not supporting resolution/refresh rates combos that it was supposed to or not getting full USB speeds. And there are people here saying that they've even had these devices take down their networks.
"something sold from a German company is at least an indication that I might get some helpful support if something goes wrong"
Germany is notorious for horrible customer service (e.g. the customer is usually wrong). Does the author assumes that all German companies have the same level of service of a BMW or Mercedes dealership? Hint: those dealerships are in the United States, not Germany.
> Germany is notorious for horrible customer service
Well, it's much better than its reputation. It's more a cultural thing. Germans are very direct and hate BS. Also many Germans hate to pay for convenience and aesthetics (that's why they do their groceries in these awful discounter shops where the food is presented in the card boxes used for shipping). That's why customer service workers (if available at all) tend to be more "in your face" but usually they try the best to help you if they can.
Interesting how slow USB-C adoption has been so far, which is a shame because the connector and concept are a great standard, but the implementation of various busses (Thunderbolt, PCIExpress), video adapters (Displayport, HDMI 2, 2.1), USB versions (trying to be inclusive of USB 1 through 3 and all its flavors) is maddeningly complex, and unappealing to the typical consumer.
I bought a Lenovo "Thinkpad" branded Thunderbolt 3 dock, uh, in 2017 and it's been flawless since I got it. They even released a firmware update for it a couple months ago! Sure I paid an arm and a leg for it, about $220 five years ago, but I haven't had any issues with it so maybe the price was worth it.
The Realtek Ethernet is know to cause issues. Based on reports on various Mac forums the most reliable option for Ethernet is Apple's own Thunderbolt adapter which uses the Broadcom BCM57762. For current Macs it needs to be used in connection with the Apple's Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 adapter.
I kind of went to the same story just two devices shorter in 2017 when I switched from a 2014 MacBook Pro to the worst Mac I ever had. I also got me one of these USB-C dongle things. Display etc worked good (but was very picky about the display) but it created issues with Bluetooth and Wifi. I looked up other devices and saw that all of them looked pretty much the same just with a different name printed on them. There was and still is a huge gap between these not so cheap USB-C dongles and the better working Thunderbolt hubs. I also switched to one in the end. Not without it‘s own issues.
But this issue is we see not only with electronics. Amazon (here in germany) is flooded with cheap knockoff products. Everything under 100€ is mostly trash. It gets super annoying to find something for a reasonable price with a somewhat good quality.
I went a different way and purchased a 24" monitor which has the hub built in. Support for the standard display ports, USB / USBC and ethernet. I have one single USBC cable connecting to the laptop for power, ethernet and everything else. Seems like this is the way forward for me at least.
These are surprisingly hard to find. Not impossible, there just don’t seem to be a lot of them so quality options are in short supply. I had a dell one for a few years I loved. 2x USB3.0 ports in the back hosting 2x external HDD’s, power for my computer, and my monitor, all through one USB-C port. It was brilliant. Damn thing only lasted about 2.5-3yrs though. I was bummed to see it go.
FWIW, I've been using a Samsung S65U monitor which has a built in USB hub, Ethernet, audio out and connects downstream via USB-C with something like 90w power delivery (it might be 65w, can't remember). So far after a couple of months it's been absolutely flawless with Macbooks and Windows laptops and in it's "high resolution display" mode I can get 100hz even over USB-C. It does only have 3 USB ports and plugging any kind of USB-A hub or port multiplier in seems to freak it out a bit, so as far as I can tell you're stuck with the 3 ports it comes with.
LG and Dell also make similar USB-C hub type monitors as well, in a few different sizes but AFAIK none of Ethernet ports on them if that's important to you.
I have suffered from a similar experience minus the ethernet. One of my hubs was even falsely labeled Thunderbolt when it was not. ALL of my devices were purchased direct from Amazon.com, no third-party resellers. All of them are dead as of today. I switched to using a USB-C -> DisplayPort cable for video. I upgraded my Macbook Pro, so I actually have a selection of ports. Prior to this I spent hundreds of dollars on so called 'docks'. I will never buy from these companies again. I will also never buy a USB-C dock again. Instead, for my Windows laptop, I have USB-C -> USB cables, and it also works with USB-C to DisplayPort. My Macbook has all the required ports.
I got tired of dealing with the fact that every one of these "do everything in one box" docks are a mixed bag of variously questionable components and just bought a "pure" tb4 hub[1], which is a thing that exists now but didn't really before. It's a lot nicer to be able to just pick the usbc or tb components I need plugged into it rather than have to take shitty NIC 1 because DP transcoder 2 is good.
I also bought usbc-to-hdmi cables instead of dongles and am very happy with both of these decisions. Everything works a lot better now.
This sounds great! Many times the docks have ports I don’t care about, this way I can attach whatever adapters matter to me only. A usbA hub, 2 display port adapters and an Ethernet adapter. Sweet!
I'm on the lookup for TB4 dock myself. Caldigit stuff is out of stock. Stumbled upon this promising cheap alternative https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001486390431.html?spm=a2... that is a little north of 100$ and has m2 slot. Not sure if drives dual 5k displays, but it seems it should.
Hm, might this be a problem with the limited bandwidth? I missed the whole USB-C hub hassle (though normal, cheap USB 2.0 hubs are already a PITA, and that's old tech) because my monitor has a built-in USB-C "dock" at USB 3.2 Gen 2 10Gb/s. But when I put the display into 100Hz mode, IIRC the USB connection degrades to slower speeds (even USB 2.0?). This especially seems to affect the integrated Gigabit Ethernet port. I didn't test it in detail since I only have a few 2.0 devices connected to it and don't use that Ethernet port at all (works poorly with KVM), so I don't really care and that's only what I recall from when I bought it.
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.
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.
I gave up and spent a couple hundred dollars on an ALogic dual-thunderbolt connection dock. Two wires, not one, but perfect for my MacBook. It's been flawless, even after a year (most of the cheap docks I used died after 6 months).
From what others I've spoken to, and myself have worked out, the only "solution" is to spend hundreds of dollars on the high end ones. They seem to be far more reliable (and have better support if something does go wrong).
CalDigit is what most have moved to. My ALogic one is still kicking, so I'll stick with it for now.
It worked flawlessly so when I needed another two years later I didn't hesitate.
I'm using both right now to power my MBP (2018 13"), connect some peripherals and two external displays. Has been working flawlessly for years. I took it for granted. From this article and comments, looks like I got really lucky.
Looks like they don't make them anymore. I should have picked up a few more.
Would anyone else be interested in a modular hub / kvm system? Personally I’m tired of buying and replacing so many hubs, both because of new port requirements but also because they tend not to last.
Ehhh maybe? Modular + affordable usually translates into more things that break in my experience. But if there was a quality build one with lots of options/configurations I’d definitely take a look.
All I wanted for my Macbook Pro (with 4 USB-C) was to get one USB-A and power passthrough. The USB-A would then get chained to a genuine USB-A hub.
After two years, I'm now on my third hub. The second one was made by EUASOO and it died not being able to pass power through from the USB charger (it also wouldn't let the Mac boot when it was plugged in!). The first one (that I can't find) never really worked at all. The third one is branded OMARS and has survived maybe a month. On the plus side, it does actually let the Mac boot.
My MBP (2017 no-TB) runs significantly hotter when plugged into my Anker dock and powering my Samsung 1080p display. The laptop is closed in this configuration, so it's only running one display either way. But it's 10-15°C warmer when plugged.
It's possible this is because the closed lid keeps heat in. I've also heard that using any external display requires the laptop to use its discrete GPU, and this generates additional heat.
Either way, it's pretty annoying because the laptop starts throttling itself with very modest usage.
I tossed one of those Satechi adapters because it crashed my home network whenever I unplugged the laptop. Apparently its ethernet port would repeat any packets received, creating a network loop. (!!) Their tech support did not seem concerned and suggested I unplug power when not in use. So much for one plug.
I embraced the two-plug paradigm and now use an Anker USB-C adapter _without_ power pass-through. It has worked well with both Windows and Mac laptops. Admittedly, I would not notice if ethernet capped at 300 Mbps.
Would be great to see a "Hacker News Approved" buyer's guide for various products. Like Wirecutter but written by people who actually know what they're talking about.
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.
Docking Station, 18in1 USB C Docking Station for Windows/MacBook Pro/Air/Thunderbolt 3 Dock with SSD Enclosure 3 HDMI DP100W PD3.0 RJ45 SD/TF Card Reader Audio&Mic 5 USB Ports.
Good to know. This thread has been great. Wish it went up a month ago when I was looking in earnest haha but I like the OWC Thunderbolt Dock I picked up so I can't complain too much.
I have never trusted one of these hubs to pass power through after feeling how hot mine got. That seems to have prolonged the life on mine.
The decision of Amazon to allow foreign sellers directly on their platform really degraded the quality of their offerings overall. While I understand they had to to stay competitive with other retailers, the race to the bottom on some of these offerings is making me care about brand names more than I ever expected to.
The first one reliably working on a mac book pro with a display res > 4k usb-c and TB4 was, after trying many, the RAZER Mercury: https://www.razer.com/gaming/pc/accessories/razer-thunderbol.... Not cheap but saves so much time because it simply works.
I'm currently using the PinePhone USB-C dock with my Macbook but I don't think it has Gigabit ethernet, but I don't have a cable wired up to my room still so I mainly use it for HDMI and USB type A ports.
Ever since my work has issued me a USB-C MacBook, I've gone through 4! Hubs.
First was a Satechi, which overheated and broke just past a year which was the warranty period. I left a bad review on Amazon, and they replaced it. That one broke... just past a year.
Work then gave me another brand that I forget, and those too lasted only a year each or less.
I've finally settled on having two Anker Hubs and splitting the amount of cables going into each.
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.
Oh hey, Realtek networking. That's the thing that made me give up on trying to Hackintosh back in the Snow Leopard days. The weird ported-from-Linux kexts that existed at the time would just give up and kill the network after a few GBs transmitted - not even enough to download contemporary Xcode. Glad to hear even the official experience with these chips is just as bad /s
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.
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.
Important to know is that USB4 in alternate mode can now do DisplayPort 2.0 which is up to 80Gbit/s. Whereas Thunderbolt 4 itself only does 40Gbit/s. So my recommendation is using one dock for charging, Ethernet, USB. Then using a second cable in DP 2.0 mode for your monitor(s). The only problem is that with charging it can make docks also quite flakey.
Does anyone know if it's possible to drive three HD/QHD monitors via a single thunderbolt port on an M1 Mac, and if any docks exist that would support this use case?
Many of these docks and Apple support documents say they support dual displays at 4K resolutions, but it's difficult-to-impossible to find information on # of displays supported at lower resolutions.
The short answer is no, unfortunately. There is a limit of two monitors per Thunderbolt port. My understanding is that this limitation lives somewhere at the DisplayPort spec level, but I don't know the specifics.
The longer answer is that you might be able to, depending on resolution/refresh. This will need both hardware and software for "DisplayLink". I've never kicked the tires on this setup, but I believe it's basically setting up a single frame buffer that will span two physical devices.
IMO it isn't very viable, especially once you're past 60hz HD resolutions, and also because the macOS drivers/software sometimes lag behind major OS releases or even point releases.
I hang a 4k@144hz and two 1440p@144hz screens off an M1 Max. It's basically one monitor per cable at that point (docking is two Thunderbolt + HDMI). One TB cable goes to a CalDigit TS3+ for power, USB accessories, and one of the 1440p monitors. The other goes straight to the 4k monitor.
One question to clarify your setup -- So the 4k monitor is connected directly to your mac with a thunderbolt cable, one of the QHD monitors is connected directly to your mac through HDMI, and the second QHD monitor is connected through the CalDigit dock?
If you don't mind, can I ask why not just connect both QHD monitors through the CalDigit dock?
+ 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.
What I'm looking is for a good TB4 KVM, I have 2 Macs (work and personal) and then I have a gaming rig, my current setup is a mess, lots of cables here and there (cable management is so hard with a standing desk).
The last time I search for a product like this were only TB3 available. I'm interested in solutions that worked for you in this kind of scenarios.
Went through this same expedition with similar results. Two conclusions: I won’t buy a laptop with only usb-c again; and searching for thunderbolt hubs instead of usb-c hubs led to the real hardware others have mentioned (CalDigit, et al.)
A laptop isn’t light/convenient if I’m forced to carry an armload of adapters.
Is there any dock wich supports freesync, hdr, >120 hz via DP or HDMI? Got the usb-c gen 2 dock from Lenovo which claims hdmi 2.0 and dp 1.4 support but can’t do any of it.
It also has issues with sleep and device swapping for random devices not to wake up or a „stalled“ Ethernet Port when doing Teams meetings.
My dream laptop is something with the performance of the M1 but with the modularity and freedom of old ThinkPads.
I'm just hoping that by the time I stop using this M1 laptop there will be alternatives because there's really nothing I like about Apple other than their SoC.
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".
This is a super junky product category. I notice plenty of people plugging the super expensive OWC and CalDigit Thunderbolt docks. These are also pretty junky, they just have big price tags.
Luckily I have not actually spent my money on these.. but we have had hundreds at work. I have had a Thunderbolt dock at my desk at work for about 4 years now, and have had one at home for 2 years now that I was able to expense. I've had both an OWC and a CalDigit Fail. My CalDigit at work failed last week after mostly sitting unused during the pandemic. IT had a rubbermaid bin full of broken ones.
I think the common thing we have is most of us have 2x 4k monitors.. one has to go into a Thunderbolt port and one goes into a DisplayPort. My desk at home only has one external monitor and seems to not generate problems. Usually one of the monitors will start to refuse to work.
The CalDigit has one set of bugs with Intel Macs and a different set of bugs with Apple Silicon IME.
Both of them have RF interference issues as well with things like Microsoft and Logitech wireless mice and keyboards.
It's all too bad cause the user experience is great when they actually work. Single cable to get everything works great.
> I notice plenty of people plugging the super expensive OWC and CalDigit Thunderbolt docks. These are also pretty junky, they just have big price tags.
Having used actually-junky docks, a good one is worth the money. My TS3+ is in year 3 of consistent, rock-solid performance. Most of its ports are used all the time, the host computer never sleeps (I've used it with both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs), and I've never had an issue that I couldn't attribute to a bad cable.
Apparently you just missed me saying my CalDigit TS3+ failed last week and IT had a whole bin full of others that failed.
It's not the cables.. they handed me a new TS3+ and it immediately worked perfectly and it will probably continue to work for a year or two before starting the process of flaking out.
To be honest with the # of them I've seen break (almost everyone I know at work) the posts here seem like astro-turfing.
You might have a good one, but if you had 500 of them in an office you wouldn't think the product is "good" on average.
> Apparently you just missed me saying my CalDigit TS3+ failed last week and IT had a whole bin full of others that failed.
Nope, that's why I posted a counter-anecdote. Not one has failed in my circle of friends, I think they're ugly but the build quality seems pretty great, so I'm just surprised to hear about your IT department's bin of dead TS3+ that they keep around for some reason. (I can't speak for the OWC dock personally.)
I have long searched for a configuration (Linux laptop + docking station) that can drive a triple monitor setup. Ideally all three at 4K@60 Hz but I might settle for one of them being QHD (2560 x 1440). Why isn't there any confirmed options? Or is that the limitations of Thunderbolt?
> Thunderbolt 3 allows the connection of two 4K monitors, one 5K, or one 4K at 120 Hz per port. Thunderbolt 4 supports the same number of displays as Thunderbolt 3, while adding support for resolutions up to 8K.
So bandwithwise you probably need at least thunderbolt 4 (8k=4* 4k) and then not at 120Hz. Also even if the docking station can manage this, it is not clear whether your graphics card is able to, e.g. see
What might be possible is one docking station with two 4k@60Hz screens (many options) and then connecting a third screen to the laptop's HDMI port (if it has one).
I think that might be passed the capabilities of what DisplayPort can push, so it would be passed what USB-3 alt-mode can do, because that uses DisplayPort. I am not sure if thunderbolt adds extra capabilities here.
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.
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.
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 an old macbook but I really like the idea to have a single cable connected to a hub where everything plugs in and your laptop charges. I just wonder whether the usb-c style connector really is suitable for it? It seems like it could disconnect easily and what about the wear?
I've used a USB-C hub for years. It's great. One cable. No wear issues. Doesn't not disconnect without a tug. It's less robust than magsafe, so don't put the cable somewhere you're likely to trip over it.
Lenovo dock gen 2 here. Running power, three monitors, ethernet, misc low bandwidth usb peripherals. Totally robust on windows and linux, I don't have an osx box at present.
It was not competitively priced and I feel a lot better about that after this post.
OMG. That might explain why the piece of shit dongle my work provided managed to bring my entire internet connection down for all the devices on it by downloading multi-gig OS update from Apple at a screaming 1.2MB/s (yes, one point two megabytes per second) over my symmetric gigabit internet connection.
Somehow I couldn't ping google from my windows desktop connected via ethernet, or access the web via my phone or ipad via wifi. The router itself couldn't even ping anything.
The weirdest thing was the update never so much as paused and it wasn't using even 3% of my bandwidth. I'm not network engineer enough to even guess how the fuck it did that.
Once the update was done I just unplugged the Ethernet and used built in wifi cause I needed the HDMI/USB 3 ports on it. Zero problems thereafter. Internet was fine on every device.
It was shaped just like the pieces of shit in this article.
I'm currently using a Lenovo Hybrid USB-C dock in Windows. Dual displays, ethernet, USB-3, USB-C, USB 2.0, audio, all working fine and have been for >2 years. Its worked with several different models of laptops without having to manually install any additional drivers and software.
As a note though, its a DisplayLink dock. There's definitely performance implications on using a DisplayLink device versus USB-C alternate mode, but on the other hand its never had problems with the several Windows devices I've used it with.
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 used to (briefly) work asa PM for a company (guy) with the business model - rebrand, rebox and mark-up 2-4x consumer electronics from Taiwan and China. I'm not surprised
I actually took a look at those full resolution pictures. The soldering quality of the Satechi dock was awful. Given the price, I was expecting something much better than that.
I have a question, why is there not trust "USB switch"es (akin to a usb 2.0 hub) available? Like something that takes one usb-c port and makes multiple usb-c ports?
thank you to the poster because i had this issue the other day with junk rebranded hubs that couldnt even power 3 devices at once on a 6 port hub! spent hours chasing my tail on things caused by the dodgy insides. my experience here is buy the best u can, or the cheapest u can (and a few of them atleast).
even without USB-C, I'm under the impression that somewhere in the stack there's an overflow: every single of my USB3 hubs after some time (a few weeks not being turned off) enter into some locked state where they just don't work anymore, on all of my computers
> At this point, I don’t really know what to say. 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. [...]However, I can’t help but feel a little bit cheated by companies just buying off-the-shelf products, slightly modifying the case layout, and then quadruple the price because it’s“from a reputable company”.
It's worth mentioning that buying the same hardware from a reputable company is not always pointless. At USB 3's data rate, power and signal integrity are a serious concern, stability of the hardware is often sensitive to PCB layout. There are numerous pitfalls to shoot yourself in the foot and they are often not obvious at all. Even with exactly the same chip, or even the same circuit connections, a tiny layout change can be a life-or-death issue.
For example, any change to the data line geometry, such as a connector or capacitor soldering pad, introduces unwanted impedance discontinuities to the transmission line and degrades signal integrity. The best design carefully adds or removes copper around these discontinuities to compensate for the impedance change, on the other hand, it may not be a problem if you are lucky. Nevertheless, to truly ensure the design is not just borderline working but has guaranteed stability, it must be verified by testing, using Time Domain Reflectometer, Vector Network Analyzer, and/or inspecting the actual signal on an oscilloscope using the eye diagram.
Similarly, an incorrectly-bypassed power supply may cause random crashes. Such a bad power supply is easily created. For example, if two capacitor values are combined, at some frequency, the parasitic inductance of the first capacitor resonates with the second capacitor, forming a parallel LC circuit and can create a huge spike in the power supply impedance. If this impedance peak happens to be close the operating frequency of a subcircuit, it creates a serious noise problem. A good design would take these into consideration and ensure the power supply impedance is always below the specified target impedance throughout the frequency spectrum. Again, it may not be a problem if you are lucky, but only proper testing can confirm that.
A reputable company is more likely to validate the design, run a full compliance test, and pass the product certification before start selling this device. Meanwhile a no-name vendor sells whatever that powers on, often without regards to signal integrity, especially when you consider that an oscilloscope capable for testing USB 3.2's eye diagrams need a 10 GHz+ real-time bandwidth and costs up to $10,000. I'm not saying that buying from a reputable company is foolproof - it is not, you see sloppy work from time to time, but the chance of getting a tested system is higher.
So good I bought a second.
1. https://www.caldigit.com/thunderbolt-4-element-hub/