My girlfriend just moved in with me. We both work in tech and both work from home at the same time occasionally. We have one wide desk with a couple of monitors on it.
Whenever we switch between who gets to sit at the desk there are a lot of cables that have to be switched between devices and it looks a bit messy.
I would like to have a setup that would allow us to sit side by side at the desk and use one screen each.
I would like it to be as simple as plugging in a single USB-C cable and everything is set up (one for each side, that is).
The big ask is; I also want to be able to take control of both screens from a single computer whenever one of us is not working from home and the one who does has access to the whole desk.
I want to be able to switch between sharing 2 screens between 2 laptops and controlling both screens with that same computer. Switching should be quick and easy.
The problem is; All solutions I have found include getting something like 2 KVM switches and 3 USB-C docks and plugging them together in a funky configuration.
Not only is that a lot of tech for solving the problem, it is also very expensive.
Do you have any advice on how we could get this to work in a reasonable way? How would you solve it?
So, do the monitors have multiple inputs? If so, two usb C docks and four display cables should do it.
Set each dock up for each of you, then connect both docks to both monitors with the four display cables.
Then you use the input switch button on either monitor to switch which dock it is displaying from to swap between two people one monitor and one person two monitors.
Edit: Just realized the fourth cable is unnecessary, and then one of the docks can be a cheaper one with only one display output, since you’ll never use both docks with both monitirs at the same time.
This effectively turns the input switch button on one of the monitors into what switches the setup between the two modes.