Those look pretty cool. I'll look into some of those for general usage.


Still doesn't solve what the heck to do with the Apple AV Multiport Adapter, whose dingledangle is so supidly short as to make any positioning other than "hang off the side" impossible. Not enough length on that cord to do the things I would need to make cord holders or velcro sticky work. I could really use some kind of extender for that thing which works.

Why not buy two of these devices?

One on each side of the MacBook Pro 15”

Is there something about the Apple adapter that makes it indispensable?

Power.

More specifically, my goals are:
- Fewest possible number of cables to dock every time.
- Need to plug in charging power.
- Need to plug into a USB hub.
- Need to plug into at least two external HDMI displays.
- Hopefully also plug into a third external HDMI display.

The Apple AV Multiport adapter took care of all of the above with a single cable, until they broke DisplyayLink and the USB couldn't daisychain into a DisplayLink dock any more. I have had (and still have) the multiport adapter dangling off the side of the desk for a long time, but I never liked how it put stress on the port on the side of the computer, and I'm worried that if I keep doing that it'll eventually break.

My final solution will be a full docking station (I put in an order for the CalDigit TS3 with a 6-foot certifed cable, but the product doesn't actually exist for me yet), plus the dual-HDMI thingy plugged into the opposite side of the laptop.

I don't like the two-cable solution, and I particularly don't like the two-sides-of-the-laptop thing, but it appears that I don't have a choice at the moment.

I'll just leave this here: Blackmagic eGPU.

I'm assuming you could plug the dual-HDMI thingy into the second Thunderbolt port, use the built-in HDMI for the third port, and use the built-in USB hub, and thus have all of your gear on a single thunderbolt plug with even greater performance. Convenience certainly comes at a price though.

Ah, thanks for reminding me that I needed to follow up on this thread with my solution.

The external GPU looks really nice. I find it interesting that it does not have dual monitor outputs. It's got a USB hub and some Thunderbolt pass throughs, though, so you could still daisy chain stuff downstream from it, but it's not a dock replacement. No ethernet or audio connectors, for example.

My final working solution is this:

I got a Caldigit TS3 Plus and I am very happy with it. They were sold out at first, so I got on the preorder list and it arrived a couple weeks later. The TS3 Plus is still not the perfect solution because I still have to deal with multiple peripheral dongle adapters to get all my stuff working. What this world really needs is a dock with dual monitor outputs along with all the other stuff that's in the TS3 Plus.

In the meantime, here is my current desk setup which is working well:

Windows laptop:
- Single-cable dock: USB 3 connection to my existing DisplayLink dock.
- DVI outputs from DisplayLink dock go into the DVI inputs on my existing dual monitors.

Mac laptop:
- Single-cable dock: Certified high speed thunderbolt cable to Caldigit TS3 Plus dock (you choose cable length when you order the dock).
- Video output port on the TS3+ is unused.
- Thunderbolt port on the TS3+ has a dual-HDMI thunderbolt adapter plugged into it.
- HDMI outputs from the dual-HDMI adapter go to the HDMI inputs on my existing dual monitors.
- As long as I don't try to use the video output on the TS3+, nor try to plug another video adapter into that same side of the Mac, then both monitors always work. I cannot drive a third monitor from that side of the Mac, regardless of docks or daisy chaining, due to the aforementioned "two monitors per thunderbolt chip max" limitation on macs.

Now I can switch displays between the Windows and Mac computers just by tapping the "input" button on the front of each monitor.

USB stuff:
- Peripherals which I only use with the Windows computer are plugged into the USB ports on the Displaylink dock.
- Peripherals which I only use with the Mac computer are plugged into the USB ports on the TS3+ dock.
- I have a USB3 hub which is the "common" hub for both systems, hosting the peripherals which are used by both computers.
- There are USB extension cables (with female "A" ends) coming from each dock, as well as the upstream cable from the USB3 hub. I have placed the ends of these three cables where I can reach them. When I switch between using the Mac and the Windows computers, I swap which of the docks gets connected to the USB3 hub, by swapping the extension cables.

The extra monitor for the recording booth:
- When I need to go into the booth, I have a thunderbolt single-HDMI adapter that I can plug into the other side of the Mac. As long as I don't plug it into the same side of the Mac as the TS3+ dock, then all monitors work.
- This is the one thing that breaks my "single-cable dock" goal, but since I don't need the booth monitor very often, I think that's OK.

In the end, I think this is a lot of trouble to go to for docking multiple computers. Everything will be USBC soon enough and I'll have to redo it all I suppose.

Long-term, I expect we'll get the ability to use any/all external displays wirelessly like they do in The Expanse. If you haven't seen the series, all handheld computers can cast to any nearby video or holographic display just by gesturing at the external display with the handheld device. It's quite elegant. The concept of "flinging" to an external display is something that predates the series, but I think they handle it well.

To clarify, that won't work because of the Mac's "Two monitors per thunderbolt chip" limit. I have the same limit on the TS3+ dock.

Out of curiosity, is this a specific thunderbolt chip limit, a GPU limit, or a limitation of the thunderbolt 3 spec?

Thunderbolt is just a different PCIe interface (for purposes of this discussion), so I would guess that the limit must be either a software thing or a hardware limit of the specific GPU devices involved.


Other PCIe GPU devices can handle 3 monitors (a connector space limit).

That's why I was wondering. Since the Blackmagic eGPU is a separate GPU, perhaps 3 monitors concurrently will work. It's so new, I haven't actually been able to find anyone who has tried it yet.

Of course if it is a software limit, there's no sense in trying to wait for it to change. Apple will do what they please when they want to do it. It will be best for you and you WILL like it.

CalDigit just announced this in their lineup:

http://www.caldigit.com/thunderbolt-3/mini-dock-HDMI-DisplayPort/

Looks pretty awesome actually. Not a full dock (it doesn't accept a power charging input), but it's a nice travel adapter thing that does dual displays, USB, and ethernet, in a single plugin dock.

Travel adapter for two displays?

You pack differently than I do, Tony...

Heh.

In all fairness, though, I know plenty of people who could use a setup like that for traveling. For instance, I know a videographer who does multi-camera setups who could use something like that, either at the shoot or editing in a hotel room.

For a non-traveling setup, that's the sort of thing that I would have wanted, except for the lack of a power connection.

I entertained the idea of renting a monitor during my last trip. I had to take an exam while in DC and trying to do it all on the laptop monitor was a pain in the ass.

Renting the monitors would make something like that adapter make a lot of sense (somebody suggested 'buying' them from Best Buy then returning them - but I can't do that).

Looping back on the original reason for this thread, there's a note at the DisplayLink site that they are expecting full support to be returned soon. It's working again in developer preview releases of 10.14 Mojave with the DisplayLink 4.3 beta 5 drivers now. The note is up on their MacOs downloads page at the moment.

It’s a part of the Thunderbolt spec per Intel. There’s 8 lanes of DisplayPort 1.2 on the bus seperate from the PCIe lanes. (TB3 also tossed in a USB 3.1 Gen2 bus seperate from the PCIe/DP bits) DisplayPort commonly uses 4 lanes for a single display stream, though 5K and some 4K monitors need all 8 lanes. Hence the 2 display limit per Thunderbolt bus (or one 5K display).

Interestingly, this is the same developer preview that also allowed eGPUs to accelerate the built in display. While the first 10.13 release that broke the DisplayLink USB devices was the one that introduced eGPU support.

I’ve not kept up with the internals of macOS these days, though I am curious what’s going on at the graphics layer a bit more now.

Following up on the CalDigit TS3 Plus...

Yesterday my CalDigit TS3 Plus went poof.

Specifically: I'm sitting there doing a WFH day like I do every Thursday, and both external displays went suddenly black. On the Mac's built-in screen was a small message saying something about how the thunderbolt device is not functioning and that I should connect it to a thunderbolt port.

After doing a little self-diagnosis, I find that:

- All the peripherals still work, including the attached dual-HDMI adapter, provided that I connect the peripherals directly to the Mac rather than piping them through the Caldigit.
- None of the peripherals work when connected to the Caldigit.
- The Mac still gets its power charged when connected to the Caldigit. This means it is now the most expensive AC Adapter I've ever owned.
- Fully power-cycling the Mac or the Caldigit does not fix the problem.

So on a crazy whim, I checked to see if there is a phone number on their web site. And you know what? Not only is there a phone number, but the support experience I had with them was jaw-droppingly pleasant and retro. Imagine, in this day and age, having the following support call experience:

- Finding an actual direct phone number on their web site in the first place.
- Calling and not waiting on hold.
- Reaching a human being directly after selecting the desired department, instead of sifting through a ton of IVR menus.
- The person I reached was someone located in the actual building where the company resides instead of in an outsourced customer service department.
- They were super knowledgeable about the product being supported.
- They immediately got the feeling for my level of technical competence and spoke to me at that level.
- They understood my issue right away, and without skipping a beat, started walking me through further diagnostics.
- They went straight to the correct diagnostic procedures (in this case, double checking by walking me through an NVRAM reset of the Mac and swapping thunderbolt ports).
- They even knew the model of Mac I was using, and even mentioned that when I tried a different Thunderbolt port, that it should be on the opposite side of the Mac (because of that one-thundebolt-chip-per-side thing we've previously discussed here on the board).
- They were able to determine that my most likely culprit was a failure of the high-speed thunderbolt cable that they supplied with the dock. I didn't have a second suitable cable to use for diagnosis, since the regular Mac power charger cables are not suitable for this type of connection, so it's an educated guess based on the pattern of support cases they have seen.
- They also offered me the option to RMA the whole unit, but after discussing the options we decided to just try a new cable first, and only RMA the whole unit later if needed.
- They offered to ship me the replacement cable immediately, and they were even able to look up my name and address without me having to read it to them.

In particular, what was most amazing about all of the above was:
- The first person I reached was the correct person to help me, and all I had to do was "press 2 for customer support" when I dialed them.
- All of the above was accomplished in a single call, and the speed of the call, from dial to hangup, was all of about 15 minutes total.

Wow. Though I'm not happy about the unit failing, that was the most pleasant support experience I can remember having in the last dozen years or so.

I had to contact support for a Kinesis Keyboard I had just purchased where the 'x' key wasn't working intermittently (pain in the ass for vi). I used the contact form and one of their engineers contacted called me directly. He walked me through the process of soldering it to see if I would want to attempt that before sending it back to them and compared returning it to them to returning it to Amazon (where I purchased it).

It was rather awesome, and the key just started working after talking to him.

tanstaafl.