Technology

USB-C and Thunderbolt docks/hubs are a huge mess.

Around a year ago I was searching for a solid single-cable solution for my M1 Max MacBook Pro to hook up to an external monitor, ethernet and peripherals - and best case a decent audio jack.

The MacBook supports Thunderbolt 4 so I thought I might as well go for a Thunderbolt 4 dock (as opposed to a "normal" USB-C dock), but oh boy.

First, there was the problem of display outputs. I thought I'd just get a dock with two DisplayPort ports. But there are a lot of differences. Some are DisplayPort 1.4, some only 1.2. And some use MST (multi stream transport) to support both ports; which macOS does not support. Thunderbolt 4 does support two distinct streams of DisplayPort though, so in theory docks could exist with two DisplayPort ports, each with their own dedicated stream/signal.

Long story short, there were basically no docks with these specifications. So it became clear to me early in the selection process that would need to act as a hub that has multiple Thunderbolt outputs, so I can simply use USB-C to DisplayPort cables. This seems to be the best solution anyways, as the dock doesn't limit you in DisplayPort version or feature set this way.

So I looked for a Dock with 2-3 Thunderbolt outputs, Power Delivery, USB-A, gigabit ethernet and an audio jack.

There's the Razer Thunderbolt 4 dock for example. Has all required ports, provides 90 watts of power to the computer and (at least in color "Mercury"), looks the part. Bought it, plugged it in, connected a display via USB-C to DisplayPort cable. So far, so good. USB-A seems to be working.

So, what are the problems? Well. Firstly, the ethernet controller is connected to the internal USB controller. This also means it shares bandwidth and when hammering the USB controller, doesn't only mean bandwidth is throttled, but also that latency can be affected and spike seemingly randomly (like you're on wifi). There are also reportedly some issues with USB ethernet when waking up from sleep, but this might be related to macOS. Anyways, use f* PCIe based ethernet in your 300,-€ dock!

Next problem was something I couldn't believe got through QA. When audio starts playing via the audio jack, the right channel starts playing immediately, but the left channel starts after I'd say around a 200-300ms delay. This is VERY irritating, especially with headphones. As I said I couldn't believe it so I tried other devices including Windows 10 and 11 notebooks, and they all showed the exact same issue with this dock.

I found out that the problem goes away or is at least reduced when you set audio output to 24-bit in Windows. That's not how it works in macOS though (I know you can set something in some MIDI audio setting app, but that didn't help). So you're basically stuck. It's so insane to me that this glaring and obvious issue went through QA.

Then I thought okay, it's just Razer being Razer and ordered alternative docks. Turns out THEY ARE ALL THE SAME CRAP INSIDE. Sonnet Echo 11, i-tec whatever, Kensington. If it has a similar port layout to the Razer dock, it's likely that it's the exact same crap with the only difference being the odd USB-A port more or less and slightly different PD wattage.

There's a highly praised 400,-€ dock from CalDigit, but availability was bad at the time.

I ended up getting an Anker dock for around 170,-€, which simply has 3 Thunderbolt 4 outputs and a single USB-A output. I connected a simple USB-A hub so I can connect keyboard, mouse and USB DAC and mic for audio. I use the Thunderbolt outputs for DisplayPort via USB-C and the Apple Thunderbolt (1) Gigabit Ethernet adapter plugged into an Apple Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 adapter, and that's plugged into the dock. You wouldn't believe that this abomination of adapter chaos works a million times better than this USB ethernet crap.

Now, this setup works but it's super ugly and messy on the desk.

Nowadays I'm using some HP monitor with USB-C which has built-in ethernet and USB-A ports. It's honestly not a great solution (and functionally worse than my solution above), but it's simple and doesn't clutter your desk with 3-4 different boxes and 10 cables.

Unbelievable.

Just imagine how easy things would have been if these 3000$+ computers had the necessary ports built into them.

3 usb type-c and two type-A ports, hdmi out, sd card reader should be bare minimum. A 3.5mm headset jack and collapsible rj45 or very least rj45 to usb adapter should also be included on machines intended for professional use.

Edit: for those complaining about having to disconnect multiple cables, sure you can buy a hub or dock if you want ease of use. But that would still be possible on a machine with its own ports. You don't have to have a working dock to actually use the machine.

"Unfortunately, looking at the hardware information, … it’s another Realtek RTL8153 …"

I miss the days where you could just buy something from Logitec or Hayes or Gravis or CH Products and know it was not garbage just because the brand could be trusted. Finding a trustable brand these days seems super hit or miss. You'll get a great item and then the next one will be some cheap china garbage that dies in 4 months.

The problem is that almost all electronics available online (not just on Amazon) are rebranded Chinese bargain bin garbage marked up by 10x and people think "it must be good because it's expensive".

Really your only option is to either accept that everything is disposable and will need to be replaced frequently, or to find the "good" brands and stick to them.

That last part is by design... it's why a lot of this shit is perpetuated by the same parent company under a different name, to create a "hostile environment" to make it so you can't shop around for cheaper prices.

I'm confused why everybody calls these USB hubs -- they aren't hubs they are docking stations. A hub provides N USB ports so you can connect multiple. These provide other ports like ethernet, HDMI, etc. But do nothing if you actually want to plug more USB devices into your computer.

The best actual USB C hub I found is this:

https://www.cambrionix.com/products/thundersync3-c10

It is crazy expensive, and still doesn't work that well, but it seems to be the best thing on the market. I still have to power cycle mine once a week or so because the connected devices stop being visible.

Thank you, I love exactly these kind of dives. Realtek makes absolute trash, they just happen to make affordable trash. The DP to HDMI chip was interesting, given most of these dongles provide hdmi I assumed the main usb-c hub actually did HDMI protocol translation internally, or I think alt-mode has proper hdmi support?

I go through these pretty quick too, they don't last long, I had good luck with the Startech dkt31chpdl and an anker which is an upgraded version of the one you "liked".

Overall I've found they mostly die, I have a Lention that seems to be chugging along, as well as 2 Lionwei's that haven't given me trouble yet, but mostly I've found Caldigit thunderbolt does the job reliably and for more than 6 months at a time.

This resonates so much with me.

I had a similar experience with dongles, but also with some hardware like screwdriver kits.

It seems like the amount of choice we get nowadays is inversely proportional to the quality of the products.

It can become excruciating to shop for the most basic items on Amazon, because most of them are just cheap shit.

That's the price you pay for relocating so much stuff.

The only dock that's actually as advertised with all the bells and whistles is made by Caldigit.

It's ungodly expensive, which sucks, but it has been 100% flawless for my M1 MacBook Pro and M1 Mac Mini for at least a year now.

Also if anyone has recommendations, I'd appreciate those too!

I got UGreen. Working rock solid for about a year 9-5.

It has power pass through to charge the laptop.

If yoi are looking for something good, Microsoft Surface Docks tends to be a solid yet underrated option that I rarely see people talk about, as their hardware design is usually exceptionally good.

Otherwise, I'd say Lenovo or Dell's business lines, because corporate IT had to deploy so many of them that most issues would be ironed out at that point.

Really really neat write up!

The Dell D6000 actually works pretty well. I have it running two monitors, keyboard, mouse, Ethernet, USB-A microphone, and analog speakers via 3.5mm. Every once in a while I’ll need to reseat the cable if the HDMI-based monitor doesn’t wake up.

We bought those anker hubs as bootleg docks at the height of the supply chain crises. Because I had 150 laptops to deploy and nothing to connect them to (we were replacing desktops and older dell e dock types)

These generally have been serviceable en-masse. I expected higher failure rates but was surprised pelasantly. We still have and use them for imaging on our workbench. Many we gave to folks for hybrid folks under the agreement they keep their mouths shut and never bring them back. Only trusted users even got the offer.

We had about 5 doa. Another 5-10 died in the first year of service. The rest, still going strong.

I came across this article way back when I was searching for a true to the name USB-C hub in that a device that gives you more than 1 usb-c socket!

When I read the article I gave up searching for them and now refuse to by anything that resembles a USB-C hub due to this article and the lack of true to the name USB-C hubs.

I have a bunch of USB-A to C adaptors and a USB-A self powered hub that gives me 7 USB-A ports 👍

Well, this is all just very angering...

I actually owned the first one he mentioned and it died after a few months of 9-5 usage.

I had tons of issues with the cheap ones sold by 3rd party resellers, mostly because they are cheap chinese crap with bottom of the barrel components inside. However, what the author fails to pay attention to is that Macs have Thunderbolt 4 ports. Yes, Thunderbolt is compatible with USB-C, but you are adding a layer of complexity into the mix. Instead I recommend getting a native Thunderbolt dock.

I eventually paid a premium for a native Thunderbolt 4 dock and have had zero issues since.