Ask HN: Where are all the USB-C KVMs?

13 points·dickiedyce··5 comments

Is it me, or is there a dearth of useable USB-C KVMs out there? I want to hook up a MacBook and an EliteBook to the same HDMI Monitor, ErgoDox, Mouse setup... but the only ones I can find are unpowered with a serious lack of even USB-2 ports. Is there something special (or just expensive) about USB-C, that's holding things back?

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I asked the same question and then I bought a new monitor...

My kvm, is in my monitor, a Dell U3419w.

One usb-c connection from my monitor charges / powers the laptop and provides usb connections to all my input devices, other devices, video, and etc.

Just one cable and I'm up and running.

My desktop is also connected to the monitor (display port and another usb connection) and I can switch back and forth as I need to. No cable moving or anything like that.

USB-C (Type C) is just the connector type which you can work around with adapters. I guess you're looking for USB-3, but I don't think it should matter if the KVM ports are Type A or Type C.

Probably not just keyboard, Mouse over USB, but also switching video over USB with just one USB-C cable.

That sounds like a great idea. Wonder how big the market would this be....

Have you considered investing in a few low cost adapters?

Keyboard and mouse are low speed devices that have little to gain from moving to USB-2 or USB-C. I'm sure they will eventually but there is no urgent rush.

Things like KVM switches tend to be low margin and target the lowest common/practical denominator in the marketplace. The manufacturers won't retool on a whim.

Went down this road a year or 2 ago. My pc is always on so I use Barrier with my PC as the host and laptop as the client. https://github.com/debauchee/barrier it works really well

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