OWC introduces Thunderbolt 4 hub with three additional Thunderbolt connections – Computer – News

Indeed: a lot of shouting and fussing about nothing because people do not want to inform themselves about the subject they are writing about. The whole problem has therefore been taken out of context and that is happening here again. Both you and the authors of those articles are apparently unaware that the nightmare used to be much, much worse. You had to work your way between protocol standards and versions AND then repeat that at the cables and connectors (ie USB 2.0 or USB3.x makes quite a difference to the USB-B connector). The only difference between then and now is that the jungle has become a lot smaller. However, it is still a jungle, especially if you are not that technical.

That what @Navi is something that will never change. Protocols will always have their own version number, so one will always have to keep looking for which protocol and which version is supported by both the computer and the peripheral equipment used. USB-C was therefore not devised to solve this. It is meant to reduce the jungle of connectors that we had with USB. It did, just look at the USB 3.1 standard. From this version there is only 1 USB connector: USB-C. If you compare this to the nightmare that is called USB 2.0, it is very clear how much better it is now.
The same also applies to a piggyback protocol like Thunderbolt. That is not easy because this protocol supports a lot of other protocols. On the one hand, that makes things easier (you just need to know that something is Thunderbolt 4 compatible) and on the other hand it also makes things very difficult (the underlying protocols supported by Thunderbolt 4 for example).

This is simply the problem of technology itself. Due to technological development we have a jungle of standards, protocols, versions, connectors and you name it. Every thing has its own audience. Both Thunderbolt and USB-C are one of the first attempts to do something about that jungle. It is naive to think that we will ever get it very simple, because such a thing is not possible. Then you would have to stop developments and freeze forever and ever. However, that also means that you will not get any further than where we are now.

@Navi that’s because you need the connector type, protocol, protocol version number, and speed. As a result, you get things like “USB 3.2 Gen 2 connector type-A”. Which is also very funny considering that the USB 3.2 standard has no USB-A connector at all. USB 3.1 has such a connector, but from 3.2 it is only USB-C. They probably don’t see it anymore at OWC because of all those indications.

Anyway, what strikes me here is that this is also the first Thunderbolt hub and is also a Thunderbolt device with a very favorable price tag, a docking station comes closest to this TB4 hub and quickly costs double! The European price is also mentioned on the OWC website: € 166.98 (incl. 21% VAT).

Edit: forgot to mention one more important point: the latest generation of Thunderbolt controllers for Thunderbolt 3 (JHL7540) have a very important feature that takes away even more jungle: they support both Thunderbolt and USB-C devices as hosts. The current LG UltraFine monitors made in collaboration with Apple use these controllers. The result is that these screens can now be used with both the iPad Pro (USB-C only) and something like the MacBook Pro (Thunderbolt 3). However, with USB-C you cannot use all the functionality of the screens due to the limited number of alternate mode channels. For example, for DisplayPort 4k at 60Hz you need all alternate mode channels so that you do not have a channel left that you can use for USB 3.0. However, with Thunderbolt you don’t have this problem.

Thunderbolt 4 also has this USB-C & Thunderbolt compatibility. In other words, in the future it will mainly be about what you can / cannot do with a device instead of the exact protocols. Again, this only makes the jungle smaller, it will still remain complex matter for many. The articles you link are in any case outdated and shouldn’t be used anymore.

[Reactie gewijzigd door ppl op 4 oktober 2020 22:33]

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