Live data from Hacker News

A dock that wakes up reliably

fabiensanglard.net

21–30 of 71 posts

Re: A dock that wakes up reliably

#21
I think there's a solid case for someone to make a monitor with a working, built-in dock. I mean, many monitors already have USB-outs for keyboards and 2nd displays and such.

I think monitors are a sweet spot - they tend to stick around longer than computers, and docks really don't need to change a lot over time, at least now with thunderbolt out there. Fewer cables, too.

I like the idea of standalone docks, and I purchased a few, but none reliably worked for me.

Re: A dock that wakes up reliably

#23
post #19

I use a bunch of Lenovo Thunderbolt docks, with both Macbooks and Thinkpads. The older models go for as little as $20 used nowadays. I had to update the firmware on the really old ones, but after that they work flawlessly and let me connect 2x4k60 monitors.

I have a ThinkPad Thunderbolt 4 Workstation Dock - Type 40B0.

Last time a firmware update came out I couldn't run it from my Lenovo laptop. I had to use a non-Lenovo one. Really made me angry about their quality control.

Next to that the dock has this weird behavior when the laptop is asleep, the monitors wake up every 5 minutes.

Re: A dock that wakes up reliably

#24
post #21

I think there's a solid case for someone to make a monitor with a working, built-in dock. I mean, many monitors already have USB-outs for keyboards and 2nd displays and such. I think monitors are a sweet spot - they tend to stick around longer than computers, and docks really don't need to change a lot over time, at least now with thunderbolt out there. Fewer cables, too. I like the idea of standalone docks, and I pu…

Dell has a few. I have the U2723QE. It reliably wakes up my Windows desktop but waking up my Macbook is a crapshoot. I'm pretty sure the issue is in Apple's software, not the docks.

Re: A dock that wakes up reliably

#25
post #21

I think there's a solid case for someone to make a monitor with a working, built-in dock. I mean, many monitors already have USB-outs for keyboards and 2nd displays and such. I think monitors are a sweet spot - they tend to stick around longer than computers, and docks really don't need to change a lot over time, at least now with thunderbolt out there. Fewer cables, too. I like the idea of standalone docks, and I pu…

Could not agree more it makes a ton of sense

Re: A dock that wakes up reliably

#26
post #21

I think there's a solid case for someone to make a monitor with a working, built-in dock. I mean, many monitors already have USB-outs for keyboards and 2nd displays and such. I think monitors are a sweet spot - they tend to stick around longer than computers, and docks really don't need to change a lot over time, at least now with thunderbolt out there. Fewer cables, too. I like the idea of standalone docks, and I pu…

[deleted]

Re: A dock that wakes up reliably

#27
post #21

I think there's a solid case for someone to make a monitor with a working, built-in dock. I mean, many monitors already have USB-outs for keyboards and 2nd displays and such. I think monitors are a sweet spot - they tend to stick around longer than computers, and docks really don't need to change a lot over time, at least now with thunderbolt out there. Fewer cables, too. I like the idea of standalone docks, and I pu…

Some monitors kind of do this. They have usb-c connectors for laptop video and charing and can do kvm-ish stuff, having a usb hub for talking to a keyboard and mouse (switchable between inputs).

look for dell monitors with kvm

Re: A dock that wakes up reliably

#30

Never thought it could be the monitor. I have an HP dock with an HP laptop for work and it's totally unreliable waking from sleep. My chances of getting new monitors are slim in this climate but it's a new avenue of investigation at least.

USB4 or 240Hz monitors are more likely to have a modern HDMI/DP chipset, relative to 60Hz monitors. It’s not a certain relationship but it can be a useful filter for dreck to narrow one’s choices to monitors that support either USB4, or 4K at 75+ fps, since that wipes out a lot of old HDMI 2.0 chipsets — which is a useful, if imperfect, proxy for Thunderbolt chipset quality. A monitor that’s just trying to hit $100 will cheerfully target old HDMI and old DisplayPort with random-old-DSC. For Apple gear, random crap like that will typically end up being a disaster for Apple laptops, anyways, because Apple takes for granted that all of those stacks are in sync and before USB4 they rarely were.
Post reply on HN