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Comment by wslh | Hacker News Reader

Once this is sorted out we would have a wonderful world. Using a single Thunderbolt port I connect my notebook to a dock and immediately convert the small notebook into a desktop with three external monitors plus many other ports. I can also magically use the same USB-C hub I use in the notebook in my mobile phone to add a keyboard and mouse plus an HDMI monitor. I have never seen this in the past: my previous notebook needed a specific dock to work and had a two monitors limit (with three different display ports available) while the phone needed a specific accesory/cable to connect to an external monitor.

And we have not started talking about eGPUs yet ;-)

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I tried buying into this, got burned. Dell XPS Dev Edition, top of the line Dell Thunderbolt Dock, should work great, I thought. Nothing but trouble, tons of complaints online, Dell refused a refund as it's "not defective" - it just doesn't work with Ubuntu well. The OS preinstalled on _their_ hardware. Most of the complaints about the Dell Thunderbolt docks are from Windows users, to top it all off.

My point being that the scenario you envision is now being sold by some manufacturers, but not necessarily delivered. These docks also have their own firmware, sometimes _multiple_ different firmwares, and at least those I've tried only let you update via Windows. There's UEFI updates that are supposed to help as well, again only updatable via Windows. So far, I can't say I'm super impressed with the reality of non-Mac Thunderbolt.

That world will not happen unless every single device including entry level phones and size-constrained devices somehow magically include all the circuitry required to handle all the different alternate modes.

Also, as far as I understand there just isn’t enough pins to support all the modes at once so trade offs have to be made...

I can plug in a X1 carbon thinkpad in my monitor (some ultrawide dell) with USB-C support just fine. I then get video, audio, USB (the monitor has a hub where I have mouse and keyboard connected) _and_ charging/powering my laptop over a single link.

Works today with Linux here! It's just magical, I tell you.

The world started to happen already, it may not become all that good and 100% universal soon or anytime, but good enough for a wide spread adoption.

I think the frustration is that it isn't totally known what you're getting until you try something.

Nintendo Switch uses the USB-C connector, but they're off spec which lead to people breaking their devices by connecting them to cabling/docks that weren't to the Switch's implementation. Think there was more nuance to it than just that, but grand scheme of things, the whole fiasco around that highlights concerns as no one wants to brick their devices.

This seems like a relatively easy fix that as you mention isn't 100%, but exists. On my MacBook Pro, the only reason I know my ports are Thunderbolt is because I know their specifications: the ports aren't marked in any particular way. The body/bodies involved with USB/Thunderbolt should make it a requirement that ports (and perhaps cables) indicate what it is capable of in a similar way to how USB 3.x TypeA/B cables have blue coloring within the port and the plug. At that stage, if I see a blue colored port or plug, I know I'm dealing with a 3.x USB one. If you refuse/can't meet the specification, you then shouldn't be able to use USB Type C for your product.

Instead, in their rush to get everything on USB Type C, they have seemingly tossed out any pretense of standards needing to be met to use the port and may stifle the port's adoption going forward.

I also recently bought a monitor with USB-C (Thunderbolt 3) which I can plug it's single cable into my DELL XPS and charge it, output 4K@60 to the display, and have my mouse and keyboard which are connected to the back of the monitor.

The downside is when I want to use the same kb/mouse with my desktop, I have to unplug them from the monitor and plug them into the desktop.

The new Dell monitors have built-in KVM-s for exactly your use case. https://www.dell.com/en-uk/work/shop/dell-ultrasharp-38-curv...

Ah that would have been ideal in a slightly smaller size.

> The downside is when I want to use the same kb/mouse with my desktop, I have to unplug them from the monitor and plug them into the desktop.

I use a cheap USB hub which has a button that can switch between two outputs for this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01MXXQKGM/

I use the same solution (not hub like you, but USB 4x switch, originally intended for printers, with an extra hub for have keyboard/mouse). Not all brands work for keyboard/mouse, but I have several that do.

Thats a great idea thanks. It's a shame the monitor didn't integrate this for when I switch display input, I was hoping to reduce the number of cables and boxes I use :(

Which monitor did you buy? I've been looking for one with USB-C support as I also have an XPS13. I have a 9360 and I know it uses a neutered TB3 PCIe lane (or something of that nature) so I'm concerned about being able to use a 4k 60 fps display with it. Have you had any issues? I use both Ubuntu and Windows on the machine, have you tried both with the monitor?

I bought the LG 27UL850, I have a 2019 XPS 13.

I don't run Windows so I can't answer that but Ubuntu 19.04 runs fine, although I've had minor issues with the laptop coming out of sleep and not outputting to the display occasionally.

EDIT: It's really nice in portrait for coding. I don't use the supplied stand but a desk mounted arm.

And if you plug a Samsung Galaxy S9/10/Note into that same USB-C, a full desktop will appear on your monitor as well using your existing ethernet, mouse, keyboard and audio outputs. Something not possible with full sized HDMI ports.

Sad news if you update to Android 10: https://9to5google.com/2019/10/18/samsung-discontinues-linux...

DeX still remains and you can continue using Android apps though.

Linux on Dex was never particularly useful.

Interesting; I have the S9 and I've done this by accident while charging, but the monitor only shows what's normally on the phone screen, it doesn't stretch to a "full desktop". The mouse does work though.

Is there some setting I need to enable on my phone, or is my setup just different in some way?

It depends on a type of USB-C dongle I think - Samsung obviously recommends theirs, but it worked for me on my MacBook USB-C "dock" dongles with HDMI+ethernet+USB+power. IIRC you need the one that supplies power or you just get screen mirroring.

There's also a setting to switch between modes under Settings -> Connections -> More connection settings -> HDMI mode.

The X1 is a very expensive machine. <$200 phones will never support all of this, nor should they need to.

The dream kills cheap machines. The reality is that they will cut corners to compete on price, and who you gonna call?

My ASUS Chromebook Flip C302CA (released January 5th, 2017) supports this, so it's really a hardware support issue. Take into account that most devices that would benefit from USB C/Thunderbolt 3 only really began supporting it in (very) late 2018/beginning of 2019. Most consumer devices just don't have the right connectivity, but that's changing.

I am currently using a Henge dock with a keyboard, mouse, ethernet, laptop charging, and a 4k display connected all through a single USB-C cable.

The dock works without issue on both of my laptops, a MacBook Pro (13") and Dell Precision laptop.

Same here... I have a Dell USB-C dock and a Dell Precision and when I plugged my boss' 2017 MacBook Pro and all worked out of the box, including ethernet and charging, we were impressed.

Then I plugged my LG G6 and I could download at 80mb/s with the ethernet cable and I can use my mouse and keyboard, it even recognized my NAS.

Has anybody yet made a GPU and monitor that use a type-c alternate mode (whether it be display-port or something else) plus power delivery, such that your monitor does not need a separate power cable?

I would love to reach the point where a desktop computer only had a single power cable leading to the wall, with everything else getting powered via it.

It should theoretically be possible, since even fancy high-luminance monitors only run about 30W in use.

The real limiting factor here is that, assuming you could get a GPU with USB-C-out, you'd have to pass that power and any for accessories hooked up to the monitor through the GPU, and the nice ones currently are hitting the limits of available power already all by themselves (75W PCIE, 2x 150W power connectors - and a Vega 64, for example, can briefly peak at 360W).

So, to power your monitor over the same cable (and have at least another 15W for accessories plugged into it), you'd need a GPU that maxes out well under current ones on the market, which kind of defeats the point, you know?

On a side note, the way GPUs are increasingly hitting power constraints is why you see new designs switching to weird proprietary stuff like Apple's MPX modules, which allow a dedicated 500W per graphics card.

It would be hell on earth if you had to perform the same actions with multiple ports. If I had to choose between curing polio, and not having to use multiple ports, it'd be ports every time.

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