I bought an Anker USB-C 7-in-1 Hub. Looked to fit the bill, reasonable price, known brand, saw a few mentions of it on reddit and elsewhere as being a good choice. I also bought a 65w ac adapter as I read that the 45w one that came with the deck wouldn't be powerful enough when there was a hub to power as well.
Everything worked - kind of. The connection to the monitor was flakey. Sometimes the monitor didn't recognise that a device was connected, other times it didn't recognise that a wired controller/keyboard/mouse was connected. After much faffing I came to realise that I had to ensure that the hub and all peripherals were connected to the deck before I switched it on. Didn't like it if I connected the deck when it was already on, and it didn't like me plugging in peripherals while it was connected.
Today I learned that the deck OS (current stable) only supports hubs with HDMI 4K 60hz display ports (aka DP 1.4) and the Anker hub I have is 4K 30hz (aka DP 1.2). So while it works, it's a bit flakey and annoying. Apparently Valve are adding more support for different hub standards, and the current beta build of the OS does have support for 4K @ 30hz.
The main issue, though, was one of power. The deck recognised that I had mains power connected, but the battery would discharge - not just 1 or 2 percent, as I thought it might, but steadily (albeit slowly). The problem here is simply a matter of my set-up not supplying enough juice.
The Anker hub supports 100w input, and has a max passthrough of 85w (the hub uses the 15w to operate). Therefore my 65w power supply is only going to pass 50w through to the deck, and with a controller/mouse/kb adding extra load on that 50w, this seems to explain why the deck is disharging steadily while I'm playing games.
I didn't particularly want to go down the beta OS route, so I've returned the Anker hub and I'm awaiting delivery of a Dockteck hub that supports 4k @ 60hz. I've also stumped up for a 100w AC adapter in order to maximise the power input and output.
I'll update tomorrow once they arrive and I've tested it all out, but I'm quietly confident this will be a more suitable spec for docking the deck.
Based on this, if you're looking to buy a hub, I'd advise getting one that supports 4K@60hz, and if it has a 100w input (most seem to) get a 100w supply to match.
Everything worked - kind of. The connection to the monitor was flakey. Sometimes the monitor didn't recognise that a device was connected, other times it didn't recognise that a wired controller/keyboard/mouse was connected. After much faffing I came to realise that I had to ensure that the hub and all peripherals were connected to the deck before I switched it on. Didn't like it if I connected the deck when it was already on, and it didn't like me plugging in peripherals while it was connected.
Today I learned that the deck OS (current stable) only supports hubs with HDMI 4K 60hz display ports (aka DP 1.4) and the Anker hub I have is 4K 30hz (aka DP 1.2). So while it works, it's a bit flakey and annoying. Apparently Valve are adding more support for different hub standards, and the current beta build of the OS does have support for 4K @ 30hz.
The main issue, though, was one of power. The deck recognised that I had mains power connected, but the battery would discharge - not just 1 or 2 percent, as I thought it might, but steadily (albeit slowly). The problem here is simply a matter of my set-up not supplying enough juice.
The Anker hub supports 100w input, and has a max passthrough of 85w (the hub uses the 15w to operate). Therefore my 65w power supply is only going to pass 50w through to the deck, and with a controller/mouse/kb adding extra load on that 50w, this seems to explain why the deck is disharging steadily while I'm playing games.
I didn't particularly want to go down the beta OS route, so I've returned the Anker hub and I'm awaiting delivery of a Dockteck hub that supports 4k @ 60hz. I've also stumped up for a 100w AC adapter in order to maximise the power input and output.
I'll update tomorrow once they arrive and I've tested it all out, but I'm quietly confident this will be a more suitable spec for docking the deck.
Based on this, if you're looking to buy a hub, I'd advise getting one that supports 4K@60hz, and if it has a 100w input (most seem to) get a 100w supply to match.
