Show HN: I built a website to better compare USB-C hubs found on Amazon | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: I built a website to better compare USB-C hubs found on Amazon

usb-hubs.org

560 pointsjunkern275 comments

Needs to filter whether it can show HDMI 4K at 30Hz or 60Hz. And related to that, for video, it’s possible to have 2 4K 60hz through or one or none.

Also filter whether it’s one USB-C connects to computer or two USB-C connects to computer. With two USB-C connected to computer, can pass through more types of USB to accessories.

Finally, it doesn’t show matches that I know are matches.

// I buy these to test, but don’t want to waste time testing duds, so spend time trying to figure out if/when the claimed stats are possible.

101 Intro: https://www.howtogeek.com/211843/usb-type-c-explained-what-i...

301 Deep dive: https://www.bigmessowires.com/2019/05/19/explaining-4k-60hz-...

> Needs to filter whether it can show HDMI 4K at 30Hz or 60Hz. And related to that, for video, it’s possible to have 2 4K 60hz through or one or none.

I don't think they'd bother, because none of these docks can do it. USB-C 3.1 inherently can't support a 4k@60hz display, due to bandwidth limitations. And it certainly can't run two of them.

You'd have to jump up to a Thunderbolt 3 dock for that sort of thing.

USB-C 2.0 can support 4K60 (see deep dive above) so you can drive one good monitor if you don't need fast network or storage.

did you mean USB-C at USB 2.0 speeds?

there is no standard by that name and Rev 2.0 does not mention video

The Thunderbolt capable docks on Amazon are still listed as USB-C because consumers seem to think it’s all about cable shape.

That said, there are plenty of dual USB-C connector, dual HDMI 4K@60hz port, dongles designed for Mac on Amazon. I think this is the most recent addition:

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RH9HF4R/

”Satechi Aluminum Type-C Dual HDMI Adapter 4K 60Hz with USB-C PD Charging — Stunning dual HDMI display with a convenient USB-C PD port to keep your setup up and running - all in 4K 60Hz resolution. ENGINEERED FOR 4K DUAL DISPLAY - features dual HDMI ports to connect two monitors for stunning, extended 4K 60Hz display. Requires a direct HDMI connection, will not work with VGA, DVI or Thunderbolt displays...”

By contrast, this is one HDMI 4K@60Hz and one HDMI 4K@30Hz:

https://smile.amazon.com/Satechi-Multimedia-Adapter-Gigabit-...

Includes the two 4K HDMI ports of differing refresh rates, USB-C PD 3.0 charging, Gigabit Ethernet, micro/SD card readers, and USB 3.0 ports, and also will not work with Thunderbolt.

Two 4k @ 60 Hz is either Thunderbolt (which is fine for Macs but has a price and I would rather buy like https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=38575 or https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=31261 instead of a noname company) or DisplayLink which is to be avoided at all costs. This hub is Thunderbolt as can be deciphered from "Does not support MacBook models with single USB-C port" (see https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201736#usbc ) but the fact I need to decipher what it is a second strike against it. It seems lately Intel has loosened its iron grip on Thunderbolt 3 (after all, it handed the standard over to USB IF) so now everything goes (we see empty M.2 to TB3 enclosures and chaining eGPU boxes both of which were forbidden by Intel prior) but the fact they didn't include the trademarked name makes me go hm.

Finally, it could be a DP 1.4 MST hub but that is very rare (the first USB C to DP 1.4 MST I am aware of was announced at CES 2020 https://plugable.com/2020/01/07/plugables-new-docking-statio... and didn't ship yet) and figuring out support will be _very_ interesting. All Intel 14nm laptop CPUs are stuck with DisplayPort 1.2 and then researching which laptops with Radeon / nVidia GPUs run their USB C through those GPUs to provide DP 1.4 will be fun.

Let's put 4k @ 60 (and then 4k @ 30) into the bandwidth calculator: https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/729232-guide-to-display... you can see you need more than what DP 1.2 can provide so everything I said above applies.

Oh and of course if it's for a Mac, in general, you could just use two USB C plugs, I suspect that's what the 4k @ 60 + 4k @ 30 is: one plug is used in DP alt mode, the other is used in MFDP mode.

It doesn’t support macs with a single port because it takes two ports, uses each one. That changes the bandwidth calculator math.

This adapter was, I believe, also announced at CES 2020.

Oh I see now https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71z-IlmfZeL... the single plug misled me to think it's just one USB C. Crafty.

Intel may have ostensibly handed the standard over to USB IF but all of the reference designs you'd use to implement a Thunderbolt dock are behind NDAs and unavailable [1] unless you get lucky, have an existing relationship, or have the volume to get their attention.

[1] https://thunderbolttechnology.net/developer-application

Yeah but it used to be that Intel needed to certify every TB3 device and they wouldn't certify a PCIe enclosure as eGPU if it chained. Neither they would an empty M.2 key M enclosure. Both now exist.

> or DisplayLink which is to be avoided at all costs

May I ask why, or is it the details you have later in your post?

DisplayLink transports video over the USB bus, rather than using one of the alt modes of USB-C. As you can imagine, this introduces compression artefacts and substantial CPU overhead. It's passable for web browsing. Watching any sort of video is painful and forget about any sort of gaming or latency sensitive application

Ah, this is why the displayport to 1080 screen connection looked so bad. I have a mediagear usb-c hub and also a cable matters thunderbolt to dual displayport adapter. Video is much better over the latter, for sure.

DisplayPort is fine.

DisplayLink is not.

The confusion is deliberate, the company renamed itself to DisplayLink a few months after the standard came out.

Sources: it was USB NIVO before the DisplayPort standard came out https://www.cambridgenetwork.co.uk/news/491654

and then

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20061106005769/en/New...

https://glenwing.github.io/docs/DP-1.0.pdf DisplayPort Standard Version 1 May 1, 2006

Thank you for replying to me multiple times with concise, clear, and informative comments. I really appreciate that.

Ahhh, thank you, that clears it up.

Sorry, to clarify, you technically can get enough bandwidth for 4k@60hz out of a USB-C port, but you have to abandon the data lanes for more DisplayPort lanes. (I.e, give up all of your USB 3.0 ports and gigabit ethernet or similar-speed ports). So, "adapters" can do it, but docks generally can't.

https://www.bigmessowires.com/2019/05/19/explaining-4k-60hz-... has the specific technical details.

Yes, that link was in my top level post. :-)

And that’s why I’m linking to adapters that use two of the Macbook Pro ports.

That‘s not generally true.

Apple‘s newer model multiport adapter does 4k60 and USB 3 on devices supporting DisplayPort 1.3 (which is required to fit 4k60 into two instead of four lanes).

That's the magic of displayport for you. It won't do that on HDMI, except with active converted from DP to HDMI :)

I'd assume that all of these hubs are using DisplayPort though?

HDMI alternate mode hasn't really caught on, especially since it uses all high-speed lanes on USB-C. This leaves no room for USB 3 ports on a combined hub.

> The Thunderbolt capable docks on Amazon are still listed as USB-C because consumers seem to think it’s all about cable shape.

Thunderbolt docks with Titan Ridge controllers fall back to USB capabilities/bandwidth if connected to a USB-C non-Thunderbolt host.

Satechi always sounds funny to French people. Pronouncing the name literally means in casual language "it poops you".

Never realized that until you mentioned it. And I've owned some of their products for a long time. I guess it's because I figured it was pronounced "satéchi" which is more likely sound for an Asian company ("saké" and not "sakeuh")

> consumers seem to think it’s all about cable shape.

As others have noted, the Thunderbolt/USB landscape is pretty confusing.

You can do 3840x2160@60Hz (and 24bpp/8bpc) over USB Type-C on newer displays. DisplayPort Alt Mode over USB-C using DisplayPort 1.3/1.4 can support 4K + USB 3 Gen2 on one cable.

https://www.amazon.com/UPTab-10Gbps-60hz-Power-Delivery/dp/B... is an example

Exactly.

Apple also recently quietly updated their multiport adapter to do just that:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207806

Intel (GPU) Macs are notably not supported, unfortunately (due to supporting DisplayPort 1.2 only).

A much more concise but similarly deep intro can read at the beginning of https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/wiki/newdocks

USB-C sounds complicated...

Why are they making these so complicated when average people don't even make the difference between a VGA and DVI cable?

For a few years I didn't buy new hardware and recently I started seen "HDMI cables with / without ETHERNET" I thought it was some crappy marketing, wrong Chinese translation of just a "scam" like the HDMI to water tap adapter, but after looking on the internet I discovered it was real.

> Why are they making these so complicated...

I think part of it is that vendors all through the supply chain have learned that churn caused by obfuscation is good for their bottom line.

If consumers could clearly understand what they needed and were able to select the right product for themselves, you would end up with a small number vendors selling solid, good quality gear. That would be bad for the chip vendors and resellers.

Monitor makers need to get their act together as well... do we really need VGA, DVI, HDMI, mini-HDMI, DP, mini-DP, thunderbolt, and USB-C all existing at the same time as ways to connect your monitor to a computer?

The honest truth? Laptops.

Businesses are buying laptops more often than desktops for the past 10 years and different manufacturers have been utilizing different approaches to minimize the number of cables needed per accessory.

The case of HDMI with ethernet net is the same. This way you can share your screen and internet connection from a mobile device with a single cable. It's only needed in specific circumstances, but as USB has become more advanced, more cables/ports are quietly just turning into differently shaped USB cables that limit which data channels are available.

For choosing the right product based on a list of spec requirements I can highly recommend the price comparison website Geizhals [1]. They offer an insane amount of filter options over a wide category of products. Want USB C hub with Power Delivery, Gigabit LAN, a card reader and at least 2 display options? Here are your options: [2]. Also works for Mainboards, TVs and a whole lot of other stuff

[1] https://geizhals.eu/?cat=nbdock [2] https://geizhals.eu/?cat=nbdock&xf=5206_2%7E5207_DisplayPort...

This one is my favorite site of this type:

https://www.productchart.com

It has an awesome interface and covers the US and the UK.

I've been working for 2 years on a successor for productchart! Modern UI and KISS, check it out here : https://picked.cc

How can you reduce phones to a single checkbox that says whether they're "intuitive" or not?

it lets people say 'i want an iphone' while still feeling reasonable

OnePlus, LG, and Xiaomi are all included under 'intuitive'. (Though Samsung appears to not be?)

Ugh, I feel awful snarking now - that is strange to me, I could see OnePlus and Xiaomi, but LG and not Samsung is a headscratcher... and honestly, if you include all those, it seems like a "has top 5 marketshare except Huawei" checkbox...maybe that's a good thing?

Anyways, enough rambling, thanks for sharing :)

I reduce iPhone and stock Android to "intuitive", since it's the #1 criteria for most tech-savy users.

Intuitive is a very personal term, in the sense that everyone has their own definition of what is intuitive and what may be intuitive for me may not be intuitive for you.

A better label for that category might be "No third party software"?

In the camera section, what does "tropicalise" filter?

It's a common denomination for environmental seal. Similar to IP67.

Ahh, ok. Thanks, that makes sense.

I'd suggest adding a removable battery filter to the phones. You already have jack port and micro SD, good.

Wow, good place to go while suffering from Gear Acquisition Syndrome.

Seems like a great website for EU, does anyone know of something similarly detail oriented for US-based consumers?

I‘d imagine that you could do price comparisons elsewhere once you have found the product meeting your requirements. And finding that product is where Geizhals actually shines due to their incredible attribute normalization and filtering options, which should be useful even for non-european users. Price comparison is just an additional bonus.

For UK: https://skinflint.co.uk/

Unfortunately this doesn't fix any of the confusing bullshit around USB versions and specs and port shapes. And it muddies the issue by mixing "3" and "2" with "C", which describe entirely different things. My first search looking for 3 USB-C ports brought up this behemoth: https://www.amazon.com/Ethernet-Adapter-VEOOVE-Samsung-Unive...

2 of the USB-C ports are USB 2.0? WTF is that. Nobody wants that.

And the third is just PD, no data. Searching for 2 ports is no better - they’re all one data plus one PD (with the exception of one that’s macbook-specific, so it can pass-thru two ports because it’s using 2 on the host).

It seems like it’d be more realistic to have a tick-box for “a usb-c port” and a tick-box for “a PD port”.

Awesome work. Having just gone through this for my company, I'd recommend a few valuable bits of information:

- Thunderbolt 3 support filter

- Power delivery capability (usually 60W-100W if at all)

Both of those are valuable for mac shoppers.

Not only for macs... I have 4 raspberry pi4 powered through an USB hub and spent quite a bit of time looking for one that had at least 4 ports and that every port could deliver a minimum of 5V-3A. The US amazon had a few, but trying to find them (or similar) in several european Amazons was quite difficult.

You have some model numbers handy? Which one are you currently using?

For amazon.com, there were a few from Anker (one was mentioned in another comment) that looked interesting... As I said, no luck finding them in europe.

I ended up going with this one: https://thepihut.com/products/anidees-6-port-smart-ic-usb-ch...

One of Anker's raisons d'être is high current USB ports, so I'd be shocked if they couldn't do 3A.

I did not realize they were not available in the EU though. It looks like they list on Amazon UK, not sure how helpful that is.

Any chance of a link? I'm looking good something to power a Pi4 cluster. Thanks

I ended up going with this one: https://thepihut.com/products/anidees-6-port-smart-ic-usb-ch...

Have had it for a couple of months now with no issues.

Thanks

AFAIK that 3A figure for the Pi includes power for the USB ports on the Pi. So if you don't load up the USB ports, you can get away with more like 1.5-2A, depending on what you do.

Thanks. I intend to use it as a cluster ski no need for USB peripherals, I'll keep that in mind!

FWIW my 4GB RPi 4 pulls about 1.2A peak when using the CPU full tilt. Haven't stressed the GPU yet so don't know about that. This without any USB except wireless Logitech keyboard/mouse receiver, and with Wifi enabled.

Useful information thanks. That's much lower than the recommended 3A.

> and that every port could deliver a minimum of 5V-3A.

For the pi, “at the same time” is what most hubs seem to miss - often they can supply 3A per port, but not ports * 3A overall. (60W on 6-10 ports is a typical config, so you can pull 12-15W per port, but not 6 * 12+ overall.

Good HDMI capable usb-c hubs below 20 USD? Hmm, I cannot find anything similar priced in NL. I would prefer to have one that can do 2x HDMI as not all workplaces I sit have usb-c capable monitors. When I was checking a while back it seems to have a weird pricing gap between ones that have 1 or 2 HDMI outputs. More than twice the price.

What did you end up buying? Any regrets?

I got something from cable matters but think it is faulty and cuts out on PD at times. I am looking for a replacement.

I ended up buying a monitor with PD/TB3 rather than a hub as my setup was using a pretty janky old monitor.

The two "hubs" that supported all the stuff that I wanted were effectively docking stations:

- https://hengedocks.com/products/stone-pro

- https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07VL675DT

I also bought one of these (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hypershop/hyperjuice-wo...), but waiting on delivery. It's not a hub, however.

We have so many 2015/13inch henge docks I'm trying to get rid of.

I recently bought one for my ThinkPad.

I'd suggest to avoid anything DisplayLink at all costs, it's laggy on Windows and the Linux driver support is pretty bad (Ubuntu only, doesn't support the latest version, not open source).

I just use another USB-C to DisplayPort cable even though it should be unnecessary.

https://www.displaylink.com/

I've found CalDigit and Plugable to both be very good in general.

I’ve got a carbon x (6th gen) and an iPhone X, I think what you want would work for me too. This is what I’m thinking of: https://www.amazon.com/Anker-Charging-PowerPort-Intelligent-...

If someone happens to have experience with this, share your thoughts please!

I have one of these, and it is a great piece of kit - but it is not a USB hub of any kind: it only provides power.

If you're only after a power adapter for your X1C6 + iPhoneX then this Anker device will certainly work. I would however wonder if you really need 100W power, 75W would seem sufficient.

Edit: if you plan to use a USB to lightning connector for your iPhone X then indeed the 100W is needed as apparently this device splits power evenly (50W+50W) between the two USB C. A comment however says it's not fast charging the iPhoneX when they are both used, so now I understand your dilemma.

I purchased a

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/hyperjuice-world-s-first-...

Waiting for it to arrive.

That looks like a dream, but I'm wary of trusting a newcomer on delivering a dream.

Apple's entire game is making things small and making them work well. Why are Apple (who has unlimited funds to throw at this), Anker, and other established companies unable to make something like this, but this newcomer is?

Hyperjuice is not a newcomer. They’ve been building such products for a long time and almost all major launches i’ve seen have been through crowdfunding platforms. Product reviews are almost always mixed though.

Anker makes a 100W charger but its ginormous compared to this one. They probably might be building a smaller one. Apple won’t build this product ever because its a very niche product. Most people don’t need this kind of power/setup.

Power Delivery is already implemented, but you have to choose that the hub has to have at least one usb-c port. It it possible to have power delivery without having an usb-c(likw) port? Thunderbolt 3 support is on my todo list:)

I was so pissed a year and a half ago when I realized that none of the hubs had a Thunderbolt pass-through. The new Anker 7 in 1 has a 'USB-C data' port. Given there's no claim or picture of video out, I'll bet that's all it does.

And the tail on these. It's almost always too short to make it useful to plug it into the back of a thunderbolt display.

I think the Thunderbolt 3 monitor I got recently is my last planned Thunderbolt 3 purchase. I'm not sure if I can hold out long enough for USB-4 to land, where hubs are expected to be hubs again. But barring lost or damaged equipment, I'm going to try.

CalDigit sells a thunderbolt hub that has thunderbolt pass-through, though not if you want to run dual 4K displays @ 60hz (the one thunderbolt port becomes the second DisplayPort).

I would prefer if it had less products but actually reviewed them, there is so much crap on Amazon you really need to try something out, disassemble it, sometimes even measure it to figure out if it's crap or not.

SEO Spam really ruined product search / reviews.

Just last week I tried hard but couldn't find a good review of USB-C Power Adaptors, just page after page of SEO optimized spam without actual content.

I actually wrote about this just last week: http://mdolon.com/essays/amazon-has-ruined-search-and-google...

Interesting post, thanks.

Thanks so much people, I really appreciate all your feedback. I read all comments, already answered to some them. I will try to respond to every one, but can't promise that.

I noted down all the feedback and ideas for improvement and will tackle those points:

* better filters (video resolution, displayPort, card readers, power delivery) and sorting by price, "no-feature" search

* Better and cleaner design

* Moar data: definitely Thunderbolt 3 hubs and usb-c hubs of higher quality (anker?)

* implement reviewmeta to check the reviews of each product

* better quality of product data/prices and so on

> * Moar data: definitely Thunderbolt 3 hubs and usb-c hubs of higher quality (anker?)

Are you talking about adding hubs that aren't available on Amazon? When I started to use my 13" mbp as a desktop station I was surprised how hard it was to find a decent hub, and I couldn't find anything on Amazon that worked. I tried several hubs that seemed to work, but they interfered with wifi.

I ended up with a CalDigit TS3 Plus, and it's been really good so far. I would not have found that on a site that only reviews Amazon products, but I would have really appreciated an actual recommendation rather than just a large set of products to compare.

This is great. I always wonder why amazon itself is so useless in this space. The only thing you can go is price and reviews there, without any good comparisons between products.

I like wirecutter for this. Their picks are rarely the most expensive and they try to recommend things that last long. I am happy they can make a dollar or two of my referral link pick for the research work they do.

I feel like they’ve been slipping recently in order to maximize referral income. There’s been a number of things they’ve suggested that are simply no where near the best. I’d use them as a guide but not a definitive answer - that should go for any site with affiliate links.

I agree with this. I was a big fan of wirecutter reviews. But in recent times they don’t include products in a review of a category that have significant market share. I find the comments section of wirecutter where people mention the products they didn’t review to be interesting.

I agree. A lot of the highest quality products are not sold on Amazon any longer due to the myriad of issues and I have noticed that unless the site has a referral program or is a member of one, I rarely see a recommendation for their product. Or even a mention of their product. I could be wrong, but I'm not sure they have any recommendations for products that aren't sold with an affiliate program.

I've had very bad experiences trusting reviews of the wirecutter for some products that were obviously inferior to alternatives after returning and purchasing alternatives.

I started getting suspicious of The Wirecutter when they reviewed bike racks and concluded that the best kind is the type that attaches to the trunk lid with hooks and straps. To anyone who has carried a bike on a car more than once, it's obvious that these are the worst kind, by far. But they are also the cheapest, by far. It's like saying that the best computer to buy is a $300 Chromebook, and it makes me question their judgement on all products.

I like them, but they're really inconsistent. I bought a bedding set they recommended (from Brooklinen), and it felt so cheap and thin, I couldn't believe this was their top choice. Brooklinen is a new brand, so I suspect some back room shenanigans; they have since been passed over in newer reviews.

As a heads-up, this means that if the best product isn't available on Amazon and the other site isn't willing to pay a commission to them, then you won't hear about it.

An example of that is nextdesk: https://www.reddit.com/r/StandingDesk/comments/69npx4/drama_...

Yep, Amazon is utter garbage at category filtering. They have some different filters depending on category but ultimately just stop short by a few miles. It's silly too because other online vendors have no problem implementing it.

Just a word of caution, I believe it is against the affiliate agreement that you show prices. I mean, two of the first four now have the wrong price -- the price probably changed on amazon's side. I believe that's why Amazon doesn't want affiliates to show prices.

Yes this is true. Can confirm

I'm in the market for a dock/hub for my 16" MBP and I'm completely baffled by the lack of decent options. I just want the following 3 capabilities:

- 100W PD

- 4k60Hz (preferably through USB-C)

- Gigabit ethernet

I have not been able to find a _single_ docking station or hub that can check these 3 boxes :(

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CZPV8DF/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_.P... Is pretty close at 87W

I would've compromised for this dock if it were cheaper. A lot cheaper.

I'd pay $300 for a dock with 100W PD, 4k60 and gigabit. But this ain't it.

The power brick for the newest MacBook Pro delivers 96Ws and it will use all of it at high workloads. I've seen mine drain the battery (slowly) when plugged into the 87W power brick from the last-generation MBPs.

4k60 + gigabit is not possible without going up to Thunderbolt 3 - there isn't enough bandwidth otherwise. The best you can do is 4k60 + USB 2.0 (so a gigabit Ethernet connection would cap out at ~300mbps in practice.) See https://www.bigmessowires.com/2019/05/19/explaining-4k-60hz-...

DisplayPort 1.4 changes this, but everything seems to be stuck on 1.2

100W is, of course, possible.

I use a CalDigit USB-C Pro Dock with my MBP: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07VL675DT - it's TB3, but it can fall back to USC-C (with reduced capabilities, of course). It uses Intel's newer Titan Ridge chipset. The older and more common Alpine Ridge chipset is TB3 only.

How does the CalDigit TS3 Plus do it then?

Too bad about the 85W.

It uses Thunderbolt 3. Same connector, but different protocol with 2-4x the bandwidth.

I fail to see why you assumed I wouldn't want a thunderbolt 3 dock.

Because you said "preferably through USB-C".

I meant the actual physical connection?

Man this whole Type C thing is confusing. Wasn't it supposed to simplify USB?

Oh, I see. Sorry about that. This stuff is stupidly confusing.

For what it's worth, unless you're doing a constant full load on your CPU and GPU, 85 watts is probably enough.

Thunderbolt 3 is the same form factor as USB-C, but there's different hardware in the cables themselves to enable higher data throughput. If you want to use Thunderbolt 3, the devices on either end need to specifically support it.

Note that in the future, Thunderbolt 3 is getting de facto rebranded as USB4 (no space). https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/09/usb4-is-coming-soon-...

>>100W is, of course, possible.

I don't think it is. The dock itself uses quite a lot of power, that's why the highest you can find is about 85-90W. USB-C cables support max of 100W so I don't think it's physically possible to accept 100W and output 100W at the same time.

Well, with these power pass-through hubs like what the website has, you're correct.

I was thinking more of a proper dock that has its own power supply. My dock has a 150W power brick, and then it supplies 85W to my laptop. In theory, the numbers could be 165W and 100W.

Personally I am CalDigit fan and if 85 W are good enough: https://www.caldigit.com/ts3-plus/

I'm reluctant to spend that much if it can't even fully power my laptop.

I was surprised how little difference using a 60W instead of 87W charger mattered for MBP15, at least according to this article the actual power draw and recharge rate were pretty close: https://9to5mac.com/2018/09/25/60w-usb-c-charger-good-for-al...

Even plugged to my 45W PD monitor, it's fine in practice.

The MBP16 gets so hot and loud when you draw this kind of power anyway, you probably don't want to do that for longer periods of time.

Nice work. I miss the ability to filter by video support. I got this one [1] without reading the fine print, and it only supports 4K at 30Hz, not 60Hz.

I'm actually still looking for a hub that will do 4K/60Hz HDMI/DP and power delivery (and preferably 1-2 extra USB-C ports), so that I can power my MacBook Pro with it, and have it deliver video to my external display, all while only having one cable going into the MacBook. Not dual monitors, just a single display while the lid is closed.

From what I can tell, that's only possible with an expensive Thunderbolt dock.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079GSMZ7G

To work around macOS' awful monitor restrictions (i.e. lack of general MST support), we bit the bullet and got a Dell WB19TB [1] (Thunderbolt dock). It sucks from a wiring perspective but it works.

[1] https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-thunderbolt-dock-w...

(To those that go down this route, be aware: you cannot use both DP ports on this dock as-is -- again, macOS lacks MST support. One monitor must be connected to the Thunderbolt add-on module.)

> $259.99

It sucks from a price perspective too.

I wouldn't trust Dell with this. I have a Dell monitor that I bought because it has a USB-C port that supported both PD and video. But it turns out it doesn't work well with MacBooks (constantly loses connection, and messes with the MacBook's sleep). Dell acknowledged the issue and released a patch that fixed it ... for Windows machines. They refuse to fix it for MacBooks because they don't want to support a competitor's product. So I would be highly skeptical of a Thunderbolt dock from Dell working well with MacBooks.

Addendum: That monitor is also a dud in many other ways, notably that the PIP and PBP feature sucks and it has horrific ghosting. All a real shame as Dell used to have high standards for their monitors.

What model monitor is this?

It's a Dell U3818DW

I have the same monitor. It's great, but I ran into the issues you mentioned with multiple USB-C docks, including Apple's own multiport adapter. Have you been able to get anything to work?

I've only tried my MacBook. Make sure you're on the monitor's latest firmware at least. That doesn't fix anything for MacBooks but the latest patch was supposed resolve USB-C issues for other devices.

ISTR my Dell USB-C dock can do that (but check for yourself, I might misremember). No idea how well it works with Macs though.

Will definitely add filter by video support!

I was shopping for that the other day but didn't pull the trigger; here are some things I found. Thunderbolt docks have come down from ~$300 to ~$100 so you may be better off with that route.

https://www.bigmessowires.com/2019/05/19/explaining-4k-60hz-...

https://smile.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Multiport-DisplayPort...

https://smile.amazon.com/Dell-Business-Thunderbolt-USB-C-Doc...

Thanks! The Dell is big and requires an external power supply, which is a no-go. The Cable Matters is better, but only does USB 2.0, which means I can't use it for hard drives. There's an HDMI version, but doesn't do 60Hz.

This is what I'm fighting right now. Lots of hubs, they all do some things right, but not everything. The reason is apparently answered by the first article ("any USB-C hub using this technique for 4K60 video can’t have any USB 3.1 ports on it").

I've yet to find a sub-$100 Thunderbolt dock. Monoprice had a sale on docks in December, bringing the price down to $56, but I was too slow to pull the trigger.

I have bought this [1]. It costs around 40$, does PD at 60W, 4K Display Port, 2xUSB2 (due to bandwidth restrictions - for me this is fine as I have a time machine hard Drive and a USB mic attached) and 100MBit RJ45. I also bought a 1m USB-C extension cord, which makes it possible to completely hide the dongle under my desk. No issues with any of the ports so far. I would definitely recommend looking for DP instead of HDMI, because it seems to use less bandwidth. You can also get 2 DP 4k@60Hz with PD from the same vendor.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Multiport-DisplayPort-E...

Thanks, but being USB 2.0 only isn't great. That's why I suspect a Thunderbolt hub is the only option.

I can recommend the Thinkpad Thunderbolt 3 dock. It's fully compatible with the MacBook Pro. With the latest firmare (or gen2 of the dock - there are two generations), it supports MBP with 2x4K@60Hz (on gen1, one of them needs to be driven from the second Thunderbolt/USB-C port). No DisplayLink needed.

You can get this on sale for reasonable prices. Here's a second hand dock currently going for $80: https://www.ebay.com/i/303430714025

Cool. I don't want a dock with an external power supply, though. I want to reduce cable clutter, not add to it.

I want a USB-C hub that's just one USB-C in to multiple USB-C out. Why is that so impossible to find?

Yes, I don't care if they're just plain USB, no Thunderbolt or fast charging.

Every "hub" I've seen has maaaybe twl USB-C ports and two or three USB-A ports—which makes me think that USB-A will never die and we'll be stuck with both of them forever.

Type-C says that there can't be type-c hubs. Just wait for some Chinese OEM to work that around

USB 4 spec claims to solve this problem. I'm pumping the brakes on USB 3.1 purchases, but I dunno if the stars will align for my next laptop to have it.

Why do they restrict this in the spec? Doesn't that just encourage people to use USB Type C to USB-A hubs, making adoption to Type C slower?

> Type-C says that there can't be type-c hubs.

Where does it say that? I've seen a lot of posts claiming just the opposite.

You can't just take a setup designed for type-A ports and mechanically convert them to type-C, because that would allow you to make an A-to-A connection. But that's not a blocker for a properly-designed hub.

It's buried somewhere in the spec, using evasive wording.

I bet this is fully artificial limitation sneaked into the spec by people not wanting "stuff working without PCs"

Cypress has a chip out for this: https://www.cypress.com/products/ez-usb-hx3pd-usb-31-gen-2-h...

It has one USB Type-C in with 3 USB Type-C out plus 4 USB Standard-A out. One of the C outputs supports downstream charging. Should just be a matter of time until hubs using this chip are widely available.

This is really cool. One more bit of data that would be helpful: cord length. Almost all of these have short cords that are great for portable use cases, but not ideal for use at a desk.

I was going to suggest just getting a longer cable, but I see now that almost all of them have non-removable USB-C cables sticking out.

Why is this? Is it because only one port can be upstream, so they try to avoid the confusion? Or just cost?

Probably both. A good USB-C cable isn't cheap and using the wrong cable would cause the hub not to work.

Interesting thought. Not sure if I can gather cord lengths of all the hubs.. Will note it down for later:)

I think it would be sufficient to just indicate if it has a long cable or not. You can tell from the pictures generally.

+1 for a filter for units with a removable cord to the computer. I want all this junk mounted out of the way, not 3 inches from the computer.

This really didn't make things any less confusing. If anything else, I'm more confused by just a massive spam of product tiles as the first thing I see. It feels like I misclicked an ad in my Google search and ended up at a knock-off product website from abroad.

What you really need to be doing is making recommendations, product breakdown, and even label things as your "choice" and why. Right now, it just looks like a glorified affiliate link farm and that feels dirty.

Spamming users with a wall of product is not the solution.

One of the things that blew my mind was that in the USB-C spec, you can't have a male to female cord, but I was only able to find two hubs on amazon with a detatchable cable.

Why you ask?

I have a mac and a PC on my desk, and i plug my kb,mouse, and headset (usb sound card) into the hub) and just swap one cable instead of three to game. If you have a better solution that has hub/kvm -> usb-c for the mac, i'm all ears.

I am extremely frustrated at the lack of options for USB-C multiport adapters. The majority of the models seem to be manufactured by brands I have never heard of. Any that seem to be decent quality and have decent port selection are also extremely expensive.

Apple decided to eliminate all data ports except USB-C on its notebooks several years ago, yet they don't offer a robust multiport adapter? (I guess you can spend $70 if you want the privilege of being able to plug in a conference room HDMI adapter, but not much else.)

I am also completely confused on how many of these multiport adapters work. One I purchased in the past required that I install drivers on my Mac. Others seem to not require that. Can I plug USB-C adapters into USB-C adapters, if say, I wanted to plug a USB-C to Ethernet adapter into my main USB-C multiport adapter? Does it depend on the adapters? Does any USB-C multiport adapter that has a female USB-C port allow me to charge the device the adapter is plugged into? I seem to have had mixed results with that in the past.

>yet they don't offer a robust multiport adapter?

After struggling with countless hubs now, having drives disconnect and displays freak out I'm now convinced the reason Apple only offers adapters like single USB-C to USB-A and no hub solution is because deep down they know that the hub technology just isn't reliable or feasible at all and only 1 to 1 port conversions are actually reliable in this spec.

Happy to be proven completely wrong, but honestly I've yet to see a hub that can reliably keep drives connected and only the Apple single C to A cable manages to do it reliably enough across 5+ hours and the fact Apple doesn't even ship a $100-$300 hub speaks volumes to me.

Very nice project! Can you tell us a little about your tech? How did you crawl Amazon's USB listings, did you use their API? And then how did you figure out if an item has the feature you are looking for: What was your parsing and extraction logic like? Finally, how often are you refreshing your index?

I'm always interested in projects that have a clear path to monetization.

Also, I was pleased to see Erlang :)

No option for DisplayPort? Currently trying to find a way to run two screens from my 2 port MacBook Pro (Macs don't support display daisy chaining for some reason) and the HDMI dongles I've used before have been so incredibly janky and unreliable.

The two ports on this laptop are an absolute nightmare, this wasn't my choice because it's a work machine but please no one else buy this thing because it's pure suffering, hubs never work reliably only cables that work are the single C to display port cable and the single official Apple C to A cable.

Every hub I try has drives disconnecting on their own, HDMI displays freaking out and so on. This isn't pro level computing if my data and displays don't work reliably.

First up, nice job. This is awesome!

Here's a few filters off the top of my head that you might consider adding:

* Price

* DisplayPort ports

* Maximum power pass-through

* Is the ethernet port gigabit or just 100mbit ( e.g. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06Y5N3YCD/ - You generally can't get 4k60 + gigabit without thunderbolt 3.)

You might also want to consider adding docks, or perhaps create a second website for those. (In my mind, the main distinction between the two is weather or not it has a built-in power supply - it looks like none of yours do.)

Do not forget to use Amazon Product api to fetch price and mention the last price update in product disclaimer, otherwise you may be violating affiliate program terms, and may get your account suspended.

Cool that you have an option to turn off affiliate links but since you are providing value and product recommendations with this site I'd personally say it's fine to remove that option.

I was thinking about adding few things to make it paid service: - allow people to enter keywords describing product - allow people to enter their own affiliate id - allow people to generate short url to dynamically generated page showing above

All above would allow people to quickly generate and share chunks of specific amazon products to their following and monetize it.

You could either produce sidebar with your own ads or just charge for such service so it would be win-win for all

I was thinking about the same. If there are any affiliate marketing people in here, can you tell us more about your workload, RoI, setup and problems? :D

Depends on the niche. Some work easily out (especially if its about products with an EAN), for others it works too, but you need manually processing, if you care to not only offer a comparing of Amazon products. The Amazon API is howevery very detailed and useful for product data. You look at the data provided and either try to "not care and add everything" or to form it to fit your scheme (imo the better way).

Issues are with marketing (SEO, useful text), malformed or wrong informations and normally there is no global valid usable database available to get all the data. Sometimes I depend on crawling, so websites changing break normally price-updating. By using an API its not such much a hassle, but also using the API sometimes product ids change and you have to keep it updated to not end up with a broken website.

I created Keyfuchs[1], a german / english price comparing website for game key prices and we mostly manually write the texts, half-automatically crawl the different stores and try to set it up nicely for our users.

[1]https://www.keyfuchs.de / https://www.thegamefox.net

If its a paid service, who would be paying? This data is all over the internet, typically for no monetary charge. Other shopping sites (I'm thinking of newegg) already provide a detailed breakdown.

Like a 'roll your own affiliate marketing site'? You could call it 'affilterate marketing'.

Anyone else thinks its weird that we created an entire industry/product section just because notebook builders don't include common ports anymore?

Not really. I mean, it's conceivable that portable devices have gotten smaller and more streamlined since they get replaced sooner, while the outside world has largely remained the same (from a connectivity standpoint).

There's only one USB-C hub listed with a detachable cable, the uni Hub. Any USB-C cable that supports full speed USB 3.2 Gen 2 works. I reviewed it on my blog here: https://www.naut.ca/blog/2019/09/11/uni-usb-c-hub/

I’ve bought a uni USB-c to DisplayPort cable before. Support was helpful: had some trouble getting it to work with my laptop in Linux and they sent me another cable to make sure it wasn’t a cable issue.

Personal opinion: I have had the best value-for-quality out of the "J5 Create" brand. Adding them to this list (it's a useful tool) would be great.

https://smile.amazon.com/stores/node/9123406011

Thanks for the hint! Will add them:)

The key factor esp for video is “does it support thunderbolt” (to which the answer today for these price points is “no”).

For a laptop you want TB 3 for high frame rate video and fast drives. For an iPad Pro, it’s not necessary (and I carry one of these listed devices in my bag with me)

I just want to tell you how much I appreciate how you allow to turn the affiliate link on and off. And also that you basically made it so that it's the first thing I see when I join. I don't see that much honesty and openness out in the open that often. So thanks!

Nice work, looks like a solid tool - have a suggestion for my recent debacle. I had to buy a dock to use my Apple Thunderbolt Display with a new USB-C MBP. There were few that could do it whilst also offering power delivery. I went with this dock which I notice isn't on your list, nor is the ability to filter for Thunderbolt 2 support. https://www.amazon.com/OWC-14-Port-Thunderbolt-Compatible-OW...

Tangentially related, does anyone know if there is a DisplayPort-to-USB-C/Thunderbolt cable one could use to connect a GPU (DisplayPort) to a monitor (USB-C/Thunderbolt)?

I'd like to connnect Titan RTX (DisplayPort) to LG's 31" 5k2k (USB-C) but all I see are cables for the opposite direction, i.e. USB-C/Thunderbolt to DisplayPort, for MacBooks. Other DisplayPort on LG is already used by another computer (gaming PC with 2080Ti) and HDMI can't do 5120x2160@60Hz.

The Delock 63928 https://www.delock.de/produkte/G_63928/merkmale.html?setLang... is in the direction you want but I am not 100% it can do DisplayPort 1.4. AmazonGlobal ships it globally from https://www.amazon.co.uk/DeLOCK-Displayport-Adaptor-type-Mon... please test and report back either at https://www.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/co23kd/i_have... and mention /u/chx_ so I see your report or just email me at chx1975 gmail . While reddit has unsavory parts, we keep our little corner focused on USB C knowledge.

Alternatively, you can power the Gigabyte GC Titan Ridge from a mining riser, no PCIe is necessary, feed it DisplayPort signals, get Thunderbolt signals. Titan Ridge is DP 1.4 capable.

Thanks, ordering that DeLOCK now! Will get back to you when I test it!

Titan Ridge is an option as well though I want to use it in an x399 Zenith Extreme board (DeepLearning rig) and that might be challenging (in theory it should work but the board is super buggy).

> Tangentially related, does anyone know if there is a DisplayPort-to-USB-C/Thunderbolt cable one could use to connect a GPU (DisplayPort) to a monitor (USB-C/Thunderbolt)?

Edit: See other comment. Looks like someone actually did manage to create a cheap adapter, and was able to power it from DisplayPort as well. I'd love to hear if anyone knows how well this works.

I think this would be quite hard to do inexpensively, as USB-C hosts have to be configured by the client to send Display Port signals on the SuperSpeed lanes. [1] If the monitor (client) doesn't detect a host, it's probably not going to try to interpret the SuperSpeed signals as DP. It seems to me that an adapter would likely have to emulate a USB-C host supporting DP alt mode. This would at least require external power (unless your monitor's USB-C port is powered), and would more likely require the adapter to use one of your USB 3 ports so that it can also support devices on any monitor USB hubs.

[1] https://www.totalphase.com/blog/2019/11/how-displayport-alt-...

I'll see, I am worried it won't work as well as that LG monitor is like 1st gen bleeding-edge tech where incompatibilities might arise. MacOS users definitely had issues with it at first and those use USB-C connector on the display, but DP/HDMI works fine so far.

Are any of these products actual one-to-many USB-C hubs?

You know, a hub. Which seemingly do not exist for USB-C / USB 3.

https://superuser.com/q/1381139/122042

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2017/10/14/the-impossible-dream-of-u...

I'm still baffled as to why no one offers more than four USB-A ports - and very few offer four.

The Anker four-port hub [0] is great (I own like four, just in case), but I would kill for one with five or six ports.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Anker-Aluminum-Adapter-MacBook-Chrome...

Could be power reasons? There are plenty of many-port USB hubs for desktop use, but they tend to have external power bricks.

For example: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B014ZQ07NE/ (7 ports)

With a cable like: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UXKTJE0

oh goodness… yes, fine work, but this site rubs my hugest tech pet peeve today

There is not a single USB-C hub on this site. A USB-C hub would take one USB-C port and turn it into several USB-C ports.

These are what are called port replicators. There are no USB-C hubs in existence, which is a huge reason why the standard is still struggling.

Thank you for putting a selector for "how many USB-C ports" front and center, that at least illustrates the problem…

(why are there no “real” USB-C hubs? some say that it is due to the lack of the existence of a chip that Intel is going to release "any time now" for like a year now… others say that the power delivery requirements of USB-C make this really tricky)

USB-C hubs are on their way. A couple of IC makers now have parts supporting that, so products using them are in the development pipeline: http://www.genesyslogic.com/en/product_view.php?show=69

I'm actually currently developing one as well that has a unique twist to it.

Cool. It’s about time. After getting a MacBook Pro 2019 I was pretty surprised to find out there are no real USB hubs out there.

Can't wait to see it! I'd love to be on your announcement list.

http://www.simulatechnology.com/Product/Detail/uid/5de9347e-... exists, at least to some extent. It uses the aforementioned chip.

Great question. Been waiting since 2015 on those...

There seem to be several devices that offer two USB-C ports and two USB-A ports. That's pretty inefficient but at least it gets you more ports.

https://www.amazon.com/AVLT-Power-4-Port-USB-3-1-USB/dp/B081...

You're pretty screwed if you want a 4 port hub, yes.

I know you're right, but nowadays, everybody calls them hubs.

But if you really need the hub you describe, here's one that I think conforms to what you describe: https://www.coolgear.com/product/usb-31-typec-4-port-hub-or-...

For a little bit more, you can have 6 USB-C ports: https://www.coolgear.com/product/usb-3-1-dual-type-usb-c-a-8...

my goodness… I wonder if that is legit or if the manufacturer had to break spec… thanks for the link!

If I understand correctly it’s basically a regular hub that has USB C outlets instead of USB A. Useful but won’t do stuff like monitors.

IIRC that's fine according to spec. What you can't do is have a cable with female USB-C on one end.

Could I connect my mbp to this with one cord to get power and external monitors?

Nope

It connects to your computer via USB 3.1 and a USB type-a port. Unfortunately type-a can't power the computer and can't carry video signals.

You would need to stack another adapter on top, but then the combined unit would do everything you want.

That's a USB3.1 hub that has USB-C connectors. While one can get away with that in the whole USB-C mess/confusion, it is usually not what people expect. You can't connect a monitor or power your device with this hub, for example.

At what point did a 'dock' become a 'hub'?

never really thought about the distinction until now, but yes, you are right. But most people don't really care and call it usb-hub, including me^^

It looks really nice!

I was wondering if you could add power output per port, and total, in Amps...

Reason that I ask is because someone might want to power a whole bunch of Raspberry Pi's off of a single USB hub, and if it doesn't have the requisite amps (~3.0 Amps per socket), it will probably burn out, or power will probably sag, and that wouldn't be fun!

But, other than that minor "would-be-nice" -- great site, all in all!

Seems very nice. Is there a way to search for hubs that don't have a feature? I want a hub that has ethernet, but not hdmi, for example.

Is already on my todo list. It was easier to implement the simple "has feature", instead of doing a full blown search interface :D

This is so necessary! However, it still doesn't answer a burning question that I have: are there any USB-C hubs that can draw power from an upstream power delivery source and supply it to downstream USB-A devices?

Just to be clear, I don't expect you to have this answer. From what I can tell, the answer is "no that doesn't exist".

USB hubs did this even prior to PD. Is there a particular non-standard wattage you're looking for?

The USB spec limits the amount of power a single device can draw from its host. For a USB hub, this means that the downstream devices will have to split a single device's worth of power allowance between them. So to support multiple power hungry devices, many existing USB hubs offer additional external power supplies.

In my case, I have two midi controllers and an external audio interface that all want their full share of power. The audio interface refuses to run without it.

So I'm wondering if there's a hub that is "externally powered" via the host's PD power supply.

There are plenty of USB C hubs that can draw additional power from a downstream PD source. But I want something that can draw additional power from the host even if it's a laptop running on battery.

(Power Delivery is an additional spec that can run over USB C, but its existence is independent of and doesn't change the USB spec's power limitations for a single device)

This is really good work! I have been trying to find a hub that I can use between Macbook Pro and LG 27UK850-W USB Type C display but so far didn't have a chance

MacbookPro <-> USB-C Hub <-> Display

Currently, the display can provide enough power to RMP, I would like to have hub in between so that I still have only one cable but it seems impossible to find

Suggestion: add a field for HDMI or Thunderbolt video. I have devices that will only work with HDMI like ChromeBooks and Samsung Galaxy phones (you can plug them into a screen and use them like a computer). I also have devices that will work with thunderbolt like my Mac and Dell laptops.

It doesn't show some of the most important brands and sellers like the anker 7+3 usb 3 hub.

https://www.amazon.com/Anker-PowerIQ-Charging-MacBook-Surfac...

I love these kind of websites, it's much better than a 20-page guide on CNET or Wirecutter.

I've been working for two years on a similar website for Phones/VR/Cameras/Drones, check it out here : https://picked.cc

Actually all those hubs are almost all equal: they support usb 3.0 and differ very little. Just buy Anker (upgraded) and you will be fine. Different story for usb 3.1 gen 2. There’s only one hub currently and it’s Sony UHS-II. (And even this one can support 4K only in 30 FPS)

Needs an option for total USB ports (including USB3 + USB2). Say someone has 3 hard drives, a keyboard and a mouse. Probably they would want at least 3 USB3 ports for the hard drives and at least 5 total, but would be just as happy with 5 USB3 as 3 USB3 and 2 USB2.

Useful, but one thing: a USB-3 port can be compatible with a USB-2 port, so one might expect that 2 USB-2 ports can also be covered by a device with two USB-3 ports (as long as they have the same connector), but I don't think the search works like that.

Related question: a lot of these hubs have very short cords. Apparently usb c extension cords are not allowed by the usb c spec, but some users report generic female-male cables from amazon can do the job fine. Anyone have experience with this or know of caveats?

Here’s a bug/feature request:

The website doesn’t support the Amazon links in Australia. When I click a link on my iPhone it opens the Amazon app, then tries to switch my app to the US listing which doesn’t work.

My suggestion is to provide multiple Amazon links for various countries.

Nice site! Would be nice to add cable length as well, finding hub for desktop PCs very hard.

From what I can see, none of these support multiple 4K monitors - how do people dock in situations like this? I’ve been using a USB-C eGPU with my multiple screens and Ethernet attached to that. Is there a cheaper way to do this?

Is it possible to buy two adapters and plug one monitor into each? Tedious, yes, but cheaper than eGPUs.

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RH9HF4R/

You really can't without lots of compromises - 4K @ 60Hz uses most of the bandwidth that USB-C 3 can really provide.

Nice job. (But how did we get into this mess in the first case, I ask rhetorically.)

Great start, I end up with 49 products that meet my basic filters. I'd really like some more feature differentiation to decide. Release dates might help too, as I'd rather buy a newer product.

Nice! It looks pretty clean and I appreciate the affiliate toggle button.

What's the story behind this? (Very specific product ;))

I would suggest adding more margin vertically on cards and making them smaller for mobile.

Yeah, the design was/is more of a quick and dirty to get it up and running, will definitely improve it!

The Story: I was actually looking to buy a USB-C hub myself but was annoyed by the amazon website: no filtering, no clear marking of features... Talked to some tech friends, they had encountered the same thing, so I quickly acted and created that website^^

Consider running fakespot against the reviews of them as well, because I straight up never buy commodity electronics on amazon without first checking to see how astroturfed the reviews are.

I’d personally like to be able to filter by DisplayPort ports.

Quite a few of these use the exact same board internally, I wish there was a way to work it out, and I wish manufacturers were more open about this.

Not bad. Functionality aside, one thing it can improve is UI responsiveness - the UI alignment isn’t displayed nicely in iPhone SE Safari.

It looks very cool :)

Is it open source? I'd love to contribute!

I would like to see a filter for UHS-II SD cards as well. I think Sony is the only brand making a hub with one included at the moment.

It is quite nice of you to give option to disable affiliate links - though I guess no sane person would want to disable them.

No tickbox for powered vs not, no data on psu if powered, no chipset information either.

So it ends up being not very helpful, sorry.

Nice! Unless I'm not seeing it, the only thing it really needs is sorting (by price, by rating, etc).

Feature request: USB-PD 3.0 feature option. The protocol changed pretty massively between PD 2.0 and 3.0

An important filter is not just if it has hdmi but how many screens it can support. Just a suggestion.

Is already on my todo list:)

Why not Thunderbolt 3 hubs? Also card readers are interesting, pass through power might be as well.

Thumbs up of for Thunderbolt 3 hubs!

Card readers are interesting but they need more UHS-II support on these hubs to get decent read times for modern SD card workflows

My plan is to add more usb hubs (usb-3, thunderbolt), so stay tuned ;) Card reader filter will also be implemented very soon:)

I am no expert on usb hubs, but filtering for pass through power is actually possible: You have to specify at least 1 for usb-c port, then you can select the "Power Delivery" checkbox. Is power delivery the same as pass through power? and it is it possible to have that without having a usb-c port?

So this means there are no hubs that can do 4k60 for an iPad Pro because it's not TB3?

Would be cool if this could link to not only amazon USA bUt also those in other countries.

Which of these would work best for connecting two external drives to move files around.

I have a 2013 macbook pro with 2 lightning ports, and 2 usb 2 ports.

Very often I need to connect two external drives at the same time, leaving me without a port to connect my wireless logitech mouse and keyboard.

I tried to find a lightning to usb adapter, but these don't seem to exist.

Sell it to Amazon, their GUI needs an overhaul, it's an unstructured mess.

The new 16 inch Macbook Pro has a 96W charger, any adapter supports that yet?

Nice idea. I’m curious, how much affiliate revenue are you generating?

Need to find a way to detect fraudulent reviews and you're set.

Fake spot api? ;)

haven't heard of them, yet. will check it out :) maybe a combination of fakespot and reviewmeta?

Definitely! It is on my todo list to include https://reviewmeta.com/ information for every product :)

Just out of curiosity, do you have any statistics on how many people disable the affiliate links?

That's really clever by the way, placing that button so prominently. It both instills trust and serves as a gentle reminder of the amount of work that went into this (at least in my mind).

I do not track that information, yet. But it is a cool idea and I think would make for some interesting insights: Will implement!

Please do! https://reviewmeta.com/blog/implement-data-reviewmeta-com-ap...

Have you posted this to the folks at /r/usbchardware ?

Oh hi! /r/usbchardware mod here.

I will talk to the other mods whether we want to endorse these. I personally would never encourage anyone to buy a non-certified device made by a noname company but the others might have a different opinion.

Dude, you should really Github this one, would be huge Kudos!

thanks for this, i made a mistake of buying a normal hdmi cable for 4k monitor, it provided 4k@30hz only, i was not aware of this spec until i experience the lag.

That lack of consistent height across cards is killing me.

I wish there is a website to compare power bank on Amazon.

Adding a number of DisplayPort ports would be nice too.

Very nice! How do you crawl the data and how often?

Would also be great to know if it supports 4K!

And if 4K, whether it’s 4k@60hz or 4k@30hz. Almost none of the affordable hubs support 60hz.

I still don't have a dock for my MPB at my home because none of them support 144hz+. Just have to shuffle cables around every time.

Good idea! Will add that feature:)

Can you add a switch for Amazon UK DE FR ES?

What is the app stack? i see vue in there.

There are other storefronts than Amazon.

I agree. Amazon is probably the worst choice for this, since you never know if the product you buy will still be the same one that was reviewed.

Bur who else rewards you with sweet referral dollars? Or pennies, anyway.

When it comes to peripherals you should seriously consider all the options, discard everything, and just buy Anker because it's the best.

I did exactly that. And I'm really positively surprised about the build quality of Anker hub.

I bought some of the wireless chargers from Anker before and those feel quite plastic-y, so this was nice.

They tend to drop product lines immediately when they're no longer profitable (like their bang'n external drive docks) so we buy their stuff in bulk when it fits our purpose.

edit: Oh hey, it's run by a former googler. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anker_(mobile_chargers) neat.

Blind faith in Anker by itself isn’t enough. It has North American customer service presence but there are a few times where its products aren’t much more than rebrands of the many, many other weird Shenzhen brands like TaoTronics, TronSmart etc.

Used to think Aukey, Satechi were in the same league as Anker but they’ve been shown to falsely show standards compliance as well as a being USB power non-compliant with some. Satechi has/had a lot of fake reviews powering its growth as well.

Anker is good for their main product lines (chargers, cables and power banks), but the rest of their peripherals (mice, keyboards, speakers, data hubs, etc.) feel like afterthoughts that don't compete past the low-end of the market.

How far away is USB4?

Any as an option?

missing display port..

Of all these there are probably half a dozen devices that are free of defects. This site does nothing to help me filter out the rest. For me, the way I approach this is I just find an Anker-made thing that most closely matches what I need and buy it. It might cost a few bucks more, but it works.

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