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by bane 3973 days ago
My desktop is basically filled with an octopus of dongles these days. It's ugly and annoying, and increases the footprint of my laptop 2x.

I guess USB-C is supposed to help with this?

4 comments

an octopus of dongles

Who do we need to talk to for that to be the official collective noun?

Consistently talk to many people in publicly available texts over a period of a few years. That should do it.
Tell me where to vote and I will.
i am interested in this query as well
I wish I knew why Apple's top quality engineers didn't embed or bundled a USB-C to 60GHz WiGIG Dockinstation. Having only a single USB-C port is absolutely cool, if you have a wireless 7GBps dockingstation.

Is there some reason why Apple doesn't promote WiGIG?

Here's an overview over the technology:

http://ultrabooknews.com/tag/wigig/

http://www.slashgear.com/intel-wigig-docking-station-in-2015...

http://www.cnet.com/news/60ghz-tech-promises-wireless-dockin...

Personally I wish they used Ultrabroadband-Radio (>500MHz Bandwith). There are numerous reasons fellow RF enthusiasts will recognize in UWB radio. But I am happy with whatever technology allows me to have a cable-free desktop 😌 This is the reason I loved the original Ubuntu Phone (with it's powerful specs).

Docking stations are awesome.
And pretty freaking expensive too. $250 for a thunderbolt docking station, give or take. Despite the fact that the company will freely provide a $2,000 laptop and a $600+ monitor, getting them to pony up for a docking station has proven to be remarkably difficult.
As a WFH employee I have the opposite issue, I've got a ~$2,000 ThinkPad W540 and matching dock, but I have to provide my own monitor (which honestly is fine, due to amblyopia of the left eye I had as a child I lack peripheral vision for large displays - it's easier for me to just shop for my own).
Docking stations ARE awesome. Seems like USB-C is going to kill docking stations though. Already they feel a bit like a relic from the 00's.
Bad news: Ethernet ain't going anywhere in the foreseeable future. So you'll still be stuck with a USB-C-to-Ethernet dongle :(

But at least you'll be able to hide all the dongles behind some wall and just have a single USB-C cable running from your laptop to a powered hub.