home office setup for Mac and PC: USB, Thunderbolt, PD... ?

[reinsen]

Hello all,

I am currently building a home office solution for me and my wife. I have already ordered a monitor (Gigabyte M27Q). On the monitor arm (Arctic Z2 3D) is a USB 3.0 hub with 4 ports integrated.
One arm will carry the monitor, the other our laptops:

I use a HP ZBook workstation with Thunderbolt 3, my wife a Macbook Air M1.

My idea now was to take some kind of hub, port replicator or docking station that is compatible with both laptops as a one-plug solution (USB-C Thunderbolt).

Meaning:
- power delivery, whereby I would plug in the power supply for the workstation for computationally intensive applications.
- Graphics port with HDMI or Displayport (which is one better, why, and what would you recommend with the monitor?).
- Peripherals via USB (standard mouse and keyboard)
- Audio jack (preferably combo)

 

Does such a solution exist? Advantages and disadvantages? If there is no such thing, what comes closest?

 

I'm an absolute newcomer to Macs and as far as PCs are concerned, I'm no longer an enthusiast, just a power user, so I don't have any detailed knowledge of connection protocols, etc.

 

[Donut417]

11 minutes ago, reinsen said:

Hello all,

I am currently building a home office solution for me and my wife. I have already ordered a monitor (Gigabyte M27Q). On the monitor arm (Arctic Z2 3D) is a USB 3.0 hub with 4 ports integrated.
One arm will carry the monitor, the other our laptops:

I use a HP ZBook workstation with Thunderbolt 3, my wife a Macbook Air M1.

My idea now was to take some kind of hub, port replicator or docking station that is compatible with both laptops as a one-plug solution (USB-C Thunderbolt).

Meaning:
- power delivery, whereby I would plug in the power supply for the workstation for computationally intensive applications.
- Graphics port with HDMI or Displayport (which is one better, why, and what would you recommend with the monitor?).
- Peripherals via USB (standard mouse and keyboard)
- Audio jack (preferably combo)

 

Does such a solution exist? Advantages and disadvantages? If there is no such thing, what comes closest?

 

I'm an absolute newcomer to Macs and as far as PCs are concerned, I'm no longer an enthusiast, just a power user, so I don't have any detailed knowledge of connection protocols, etc.

 

I use a Anker "Docking" station for my Intel Mac. Its one of those has the two USB C Ports and just plugs in to the side of the machine deals. Gives me USB-C PD, a USB-Port, HDMI, SD card reader and a couple USB-A ports, for mouse and keyboard and such. I know Anker has a few models, so at the very least you should be able to find one. Some of these might also work with a PC as well. So I guess Im saying, check out Anker, they most likely will have a solution. There are also shit loads of other companies offering solutions, but Anker is a computer I have heard of and would be more trusting of. 

[reinsen]

thanks for your reply. I'll check out Anker's solutions.

 

but what really is important to me here is this one-plug-for-all approach. display, USB peripherals and ideally PD through thunderbolt for both PC an Mac.

Also cable is preferred to directly plugged in docks like you mentioned to be more flexible and allow better cable management. also the macbook has the dual USB-Cs on the left side, my workstation the single USB-C on the right side.