This post is a pre-cursor to the Ultimate Guide to Desk Cable Management that I will eventually write. For now, let’s talk about the heart of my work from home multi-monitor, multi-PC, single-desk setup.
The problem statement: how can I share 1 monitor and 5 peripherals between my work laptop, my personal desktop, and my personal laptop
Elaborating a little bit on the problem statement:
- I have a single 38″ Ultrawide monitor that I use with my personal PC
- I want to use this monitor as a second screen with my work laptop
- If possible, I want to switch my keyboard, mouse, mic, webcam, speakers, and stream deck, between my 3 PCs
The two options I had was getting a multi-port dock or a KVM switch. Unfortunately, the more I looked into a KVM switch, I realized that this wouldn’t solve my problem. Here’s why:
- KVMs look ugly
- KVMs don’t have enough ports for my devices
- KVMs are awkward for my master plan of cable management because in some cases they have two devices
- KVMs look ugly
I started looking into docks because of the number of ports (USB-C and USB) that these things have. My plan was to:
- Have everything connected to a dock and an HDMI switcher
- Switching a single USB-C wire from my work laptop to personal PC (and vice-versa) would switch all my devices
- Press a button and my monitor will switch between PCs
Selecting The Dock:
I narrowed my option to the Anker 575 USB-C Docking Station. It had all the ports I wanted. Unfortunately, I learned that the Anker dock does not carry video signal over USB-C. And this is when I also learned that not all USB-C cables carry video signal. There are special USB-C cables that can carry video over USB-C. Anyway, the Anker dock didn’t work so I started looking for another option. I also didn’t want to spend an obscene amount on the dock. My Amazon searches showed me a MOKiN dock that had the right number of USB-C and USB ports for me. I had not heard about the company before and that was ok; it had the features I needed at a price I was ok with.
The minimum requirements were:
- Needs to have at least 5 USB (at least some should USB 3.0)
- Needs to have at least 1 USB-C port
- Should be USB-C connectivity to the PC
- Should support at least 2 monitors (high refresh rates and FPS was not part of the selection criteria since this is work for home and I am not an FPS gamer)
Getting Accessories For The Dock:
To get this setup to work, I needed an HDMI switch and a USB-C cable that was long enough for me to easily move from 1 PC to the other. For the setup to work:
- The dock’s HDMI 1 goes into the switch as input
- The PC’s HDMI goes into the switch as input
- The output of the switch goes into the monitor
The Result:
-
Scenario 1 (work from home):
- I plug the dock’s primary USB-C to the work laptop -> all peripherals switch to the work laptop
- I press the button to HDMI 1 -> the monitor becomes a second monitor to the work laptop
- I press the Bluetooth button on my Logitech G915 keyboard -> keyboard switches to work with the work laptop
-
Scenario 2 (play at home):
- I plug the dock’s primary USB-C to the personal desktop (or personal laptop) -> all peripherals switch to the personal desktop (or personal laptop)
- I switch HDMI to HDMI 2 -> the monitor becomes the primary monitor for my personal desktop (or personal laptop)
- I press the Lightspeed button on my Logitech G915 keyboard -> keyboard switches to work with the personal desktop
Here’s a quick video of the work from home setup in action:
Buying links:
Photos of how I hid the dock:
