Most newer Dell monitors have built -in KVMs and hubs. It's nice, becuase with wireless peripherals that USB receivers, it's a cableless setup. With a laptop, it's just a single cable to hookup everything.
2 years later switched from m1 to m2 and it no longer works well enough (may also be the Sonoma upgrade stil gotta verify that). The devices get disconnected and glitch etc.
Went to check with dell and monitor is "not supported" on macos.
I have an Intel Macbook 2019 for work. I've tried a couple different kvm solutions but they all had issues, always on the Mac side. The best I got was <1 sec switching from Mac to Linux and 10-15 seconds switching from Linux to Mac for everything to stabilize.
I ended up going with the nuclear option of an IP KVM https://www.raritan.com/support/product/dominion-kx-iv-101 that will do all the resolutions I want at 60hz. It was very expensive, but on the bright side it lets me keep work laptops completely unmodified and easily swappable.
macOS has either always lacked (like Display port MST) or later broken/crippled (like DisplayLink support) some important features for multi-monitor setups. I wonder if those things or similar things are somehow implicated in these KVM-enabled monitors.
I also had hell even with an Intel Macbook Pro. This whole just works thing Apple has been able to project is unfortunate. I have refused using Apple products from work because of how poorly their products integrate. It's not Dell. It's Apple. Any other monitor manufacturer will have the same issues.
Apple also refuses to implement a protocol that allows controlling the brightness and volume of a non-Apple monitor from the keyboard or even macOS itself. It's infuriating. The only monitors it works with are Apple's and the two overpriced Apple-sanctioned LG monitors sold in the Apple Store.
I use an app called MonitorControl on a M1 16" MBP running Sonoma that adjusts both the MBP screen and external HP 25f monitor. It adjusts the brightness and contrast of whichever screen the cursor is in.
Right, but that's part of the point. Apple should just have this inside macOS.
From MonitorControl's GitHub README, emphasis mine:
> Most modern LCD displays from all major manufacturers supported implemented DDC/CI protocol via USB-C, DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI or VGA to allow for hardware backlight and volume control.
A 16" Macbook Pro starts at $2,499. I do expect it to just work with basic peripherals and protocols for them.
I'm just explaining how it doesn't just work, and that I'm perfectly happy not using their products. My comment was also a correction that it's on Apple, and not Dell, as to why Apple products don't work well with non-Apple devices. This is a tactic that Apple uses to try and denigrate non-Apple products and get people to come back to Apple's "premium" versions of those products.
There are clear and easy steps Apple could take, but they won't.
"I don't want to tinker with anything and have everything work out of the box" is Apple's entire value proposition.
That's the one justification that consistently gets upvoted to the top any time someone questions Apple's pricing structure. Please don't change the tune when someone reports a serious ongoing problem.
I'm a little interested in one of these as an option to eventually replace my Dell WD19 USB-C DP-alt mode dock for my Dell notebook and my Desktop PC which connects by HDMI cables.
One question I couldn't see an answer to is whether or not the I can make the network port "sticky" to my Dell notebook (plugged in over USB-C), or will it "move" to my Desktop PC when I switch to it?
I read last year how recent standard made higher wattage delivery over USB-C now standard (I think it was the latest Thunderbolt one), so I'm waiting until these monitors can do that.
