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Comment by kitsunesoba | Hacker News Reader

Surprised there was no mention of CalDigit docks. One of my desks has an old TS3+ that drives 2x 2560x1440 monitors perfectly from an M1 Pro machine, and it was rock solid when used with older Intel Macs and Windows PCs too. It’s Thunderbolt 3, but CalDigit recently released a TB4 version.

I haven’t yet tried dual displays with it but my other desk is using a Lenovo ThinkPad Thunderbolt 4 Dock and it’s also been solid.

I suspect that a lot of the more mass market oriented docks cut corners and don’t implement specs quite to full compliance which leads to weirdness like seen in the article.

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Using a CalDigit right now to power two monitors on an M1 Macbook Pro. It doesn't go above 60hz (my monitors are 165hz) but I'm still happy with it. Has an ethernet port too, which is great.

Are you using HDMI or DisplayPort and which type of cables (e.g. do they convert connection type, or for example the same on both ends)? Asking as I have the same doc and about to get an M1.

I also have this dock driving two Dell 4K displays at 60hz from an M1 Max. Using DisplayPort cables I had to use one TB port and one DP connector on the dock, but miniDP on the monitor side (full DP should work too, these were the cables I had).

Two HDMI cables plugged into the CalDigit port, which goes into a USB-C port in my MacBook. I also have an ethernet cable plugged into it as well.

There was a period of time where the TS3+ was completely unavailable. Our IT people were saying that the manufacturer couldn't get parts to build them. :( I was lucky enough to get one before that happened and can say it works great. I'm using a SUW49DA from Viotek. The only issue I have is that something keeps waking the monitor up overnight but not sending a video signal. This eventually causes the monitor to shutdown and stop waking up until it's physically power cycled ( i.e. unplug/replugin). Otherwise, it's been great.

Early on especially almost all of the docks had the exact same chip on the inside.

When I upgraded to an M1 MacBook Pro, my CalDigit TS3+ no longer supported dual external monitors and I had to buy a new dock: https://www.caldigit.com/apple-silicon-mac-and-caldigit-dock...

That’s because regular M1’s can only support two displays. In the case of MacBooks, that’s the internal display and one external.

M1 Pro and Max do not share this limitation.

Apparently DisplayLink adapters get around this limitation.

Can confirm DisplayLink works fine

Sounds like you didn't do enough research. I am using a CalDigit TS3+ with 2x4K and 1x1080p external displays on a M1 Macbook Pro to write this comment. It is not difficult at all to do and took less than five minutes of searching for me to find the guides and instruction videos when I decided to upgrade my Macbook to Apple Silicon.

What cable and connector types are you using please?

All monitors have DisplayPort and HDMI inputs, using DP<->DP, usb-c<->DP, and usb-c<->HDMI (latter for the 1080p display). Also using DisplayLink Manager to drive the 2nd and 3rd extra displays.

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