Ever since the start of the pandemic, many of us have been working from home full-time, myself included. I first started out with a dual-display USB C hub but then determined that I needed a triple display system. So, the only one I found that had a triple HDMI output was the UtechSmart Triple Display USB C Docking Station on Amazon.
I’ve been using it for a few months so far and although there are some quirks when I try to plug power directly into the hub itself, it works perfectly well as a triple display USB C hub. These days, I don’t power the hub directly, I just plug in the power cable to my laptop itself.
I’ve got mine connected to my Microsoft Surface Book 2 and my onboard Nvidia GPU powers my 3D applications through the hub without any issues. I believe one of the reasons why there aren’t many triple display USB C hubs like this is that there are limitations based on the device you have it connected to.
This hub is a 12 in 1 Type C laptop docking station that is compatible with MacBooks and Windows-based laptops.
As you can see from the image above, it’s got quite a few ports. Here’s a rundown of the ports:
- 3x 4K HDMI Output
- 2x USB 2.0 ports
- 2x USB 3.0 ports
- 1x USB C Data port
- 1x USB C Female PD Charging Port
- 1x SD/TF Card Slot
- 1x RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet port
Whoa, that’s a lot of connections. As mentioned earlier, this was the only device I found at the time that had triple HDMI outputs and also at 4k resolutions. Many of the other triple display hubs I found used DisplayPort ports, but since my monitors do not have DisplayPort, I needed one that natively had all HDMI ports.
One of the criteria in being able to use all three HDMI ports is if your source device’s USB-C port supports DP Alt Mode. I couldn’t find documentation on my Microsoft Surface Book 2 if the USB-C port supported that feature but I took a chance anyway and apparently it does.
These days, there are a lot of options for USB C hubs that allow you to expand your connectively for working at home. This is just one of the prime examples I have personally used and I can vouch for it.
