I recently worked with a new client who needed to set her office up with a good set of digital tools to make going live on TikTok easier for her. She has a great product and a great enthusiasm for her topic and she just needed encouragement and some small tools to make her journey into LIVE production easier. During that consultation we discovered some issues with device compatibility and what she wanted to achieve more easily.
In comes a few easy fixes for what could be major issues for her setup.
First, she really needed to be able to run two monitors from a mac laptop. No big deal right? Well, one of the monitors was newer and one was older only allowing an HDMI input. She had plenty of cables and hubs, but they weren’t communicating the way we needed them to.
A product that I use for my own setup would be the perfect hub to master this situation. I use the Caldigit Thunderbolt 4 Element hub. It solves so many problems for me and will be a great resolution for her.
The CalDigit Thunderbolt 4 Element Hub expands your laptop’s connectivity with multiple Thunderbolt 4/USB4 and USB-A ports, delivering up to 40 Gb/s speeds for external drives and peripherals. It supports dual 4K or a single 8K display, while also providing up to 60 W power delivery to charge your laptop through the same connection. Compact and widely compatible with Thunderbolt 4, Thunderbolt 3, USB4, and USB-C devices, it’s a powerful, space-saving solution for streamlined workflows.
It’s one cable from your laptop, but then gives you four USB-Cs and four USB-A ports to use however you like.
In this case, she can run one cable from her laptop to the hub, then one cable from her hub to her main monitor and then another USB-C to HDMI cable to her other older monitor. Currently, she is using an HDMI to HDMI and it’s not communicating through one of her existing hubs. The Element 4 Hub takes care of that and now she just needs one other cable.
A USB-C to HDMI cable like this best seller on Amazon!
This cable lets you mirror or extend your laptop, tablet, or phone’s display in crisp 4K at 60 Hz (also supporting lower resolutions at higher refresh rates like 1440p/2K@144Hz or 1080p@240Hz), ideal for smooth video.
It features gold-plated connectors, a braided nylon jacket, thick copper wiring, and an aluminum shell — all helping reduce interference, improve durability, and maintain signal integrity.
The cable works via USB-C ports with video-output (DP Alt-Mode or Thunderbolt), making it broadly compatible with newer MacBooks, iPads, Galaxy/Surface devices, etc.
So with two small purchases, you can be up and running with an older monitor configured the way you like! Plus, you’re using up only one USB-C/Thunderbolt port on your mac laptop and you have so many other options for future work needs.
If you need help getting your office configured and you live in the Nashville area, feel free to contact me directly for help.
