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).
USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)
301–310 of 530 posts
Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)
#302I 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).
Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I know that, and you know that, and by the time my kid figures it out.... I'll have saved enough to send him to College. .
Top 5 usb C hacks that your kids don't want you to know.
Hack 1. Gas light your children ...
Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 d…
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.
Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
And it still costs as much as a computer.
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.
Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)
#306I 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.
Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)
#307Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
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 th…
I keep my lid closed as well and I’ve never had it not wake up. Though, with the latest is version it has seemed slower to wake at times.
Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)
#308Sad to see Anker on the list. I used to think of them as a pretty reliable electronics manufacturer in a sea of low quality chargers and hubs.
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.
Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 th…
Does it have an audible coil whine? I've tested 5+ TS3 Plus docks, and all of them have a coil whine, which can be heard in a quiet room, without playing any music. Sometimes I like to work in silence, and the coil whine really bothers me.
I have two 3x4k display Startech hubs, and one developed a very audible coil whine, the other did not. It was so bad it landed in a drawer.
Otherwise both worked fine allowing me to drive 3 screens on the OG M1 mbp. They each cost around 350 eur though.
Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)
#310When 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 m…
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.