Best setup for switching between 2 Macs and a PC at one desk (2022)?

October 26, 2022 12:50 PM

Is it a KVM? One of those newfangled USB hubs? Or something else?

Asking as I have two Mac laptops (one work and one personal, 2021 and 2019 vintages, respectively) and anticipate building a PC to run some software that I cannot run on the Macs. I'd like to be able to switch between monitors and peripherals from computer to computer as seamlessly as possible. I have one monitor currently, with potentially another on the way. I have a Logitech MX keyboard and mouse, which should in theory support switching these inputs between machines, but I'm lost as how to best handle everything else.

What's the most painless way to accomplish this in 2022, and which will be compatible across Mac/PC platforms? A KVM? Or an USB switch?

posted by un petit cadeau to Computers & Internet (15 answers total)

USB-C KVM switch should do you, I think? The alternative would be a USB-C/Thunderbolt dock and swapping its cable between machines. If you have any peripherals that you can't plug in to available USB-C KVMs, that'd be the reason to go the dock route instead.
posted by humbug at 12:56 PM on October 26, 2022

LG and I think Samsung have software that pairs with their monitors to allow one keyboard and mouse for multiple computers. And I believe you can decide if and how you want each computer displayed on the screen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUdw1npmpsI
posted by fingerdrop at 1:03 PM on October 26, 2022

There's a piece of software called Synergy that does this quite nicely over your network, with no special hardware. It's open source but not gratis-- you must either buy it for $30 or compile it yourself.
posted by 4th number at 1:13 PM on October 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

Do you need to run these all simultaneously, and pull data from one to another?

One hardware-less approach: choose one computer, and use remote desktop software to connect to the others.
posted by meowzilla at 1:19 PM on October 26, 2022

Personally, I'd use an L-shaped desk with Macs on one side and PCs on the other, and keep the two workspaces separate with separate peripherals. You can network them to share files, print to printer, and stuff, but using a single keyboard and mouse among all of them, personally, is not always practical or desirable, being they have very different design philosophies, and thus, what works for one PC may not work for the other.
posted by kschang at 1:26 PM on October 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

+1 for Synergy. Share one keyboard/mouse among your three machines.

Set your 3 monitors up next to each other, and your mouse pointer leaves one screen and goes to the other, and that focus determines where your keystrokes go. It does require 10 minutes of setup to tell the software which machine is on the left, etc.
posted by at at 1:29 PM on October 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

These days, I'd just go for a remote desktop solution like Splashtop or similar. Don't think I've seen anyone use a KVM setup, or any other hardware solution, for years now. I remotely manage a whole office full of PCs and MacBooks that way.
posted by pipeski at 1:33 PM on October 26, 2022

Ditto on the Synergy sort of thing (not sure I used that way back when). One keyboard/mouse, mouse moves and crosses screens to left and right, mouse picks which machine you're working on. Everything else is network for any peripherals. I has a Sun Workstation, a Linux box, a Mac, and a Windows machine all hooked together just using one keyboard/mouse.

You're only problem might be laptops and configurations of what's there and what isn't. Maybe put the portable's at the far left/right edges.

Remote Desktop is fine ast well (RDP, VNC, whatever kids are using today). Helps greatly if your driving system has multiple desktops so that it's easy to switch, one system per desktop. (Same goes for running VMs BTW).
posted by zengargoyle at 2:10 PM on October 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

I am currently using Synergy (there are other "software KV" options as well). Synergy is a paid fork of an existing KV program, the name of which escapes me. I used a hardware KVM before, but these only work with wired connections; I had bluetooth pointing devices for each machine, which I could live with, but when I decided to try using a bluetooth keyboard, finding a bluetooth KVM was problematic. I tried using VNC but had problems with that—in some ways, it would be ideal for my purposes.

I've got a work PC and a personal Mac; for my home office, I have them both plugged into the same monitor via different ports, and when I want to dedicate that monitor to one or the other, I switch the monitor's input source.

Synergy has clipboard sharing, which is handy. Sometimes the cursor seems to get stuck on one side or the other; I find that opening the Synergy window and hitting "apply" fixes it.

I've got my Mac set up as the Synergy server and the PC as the client. Interestingly, I need to VPN into work on the PC and Synergy works fine, but if I open a VPN on the Mac, it can no longer see the PC on the network (which is what you'd expect).
posted by adamrice at 2:34 PM on October 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

I've used mixed environments for many years, and like other people upthread, generally prefer remote desktop/screen sharing. (To this end, it might be worth mentioning that macOS includes built-in Screen Sharing.) The one situation that I still find problematic is accessing the bios screens of PCs. I haven't tried Synergy for at least a decade, so maybe it has changed, but if it's software that only runs after the machine has booted, then I don't see how it can let you access the boot/bios screens before the OS has booted. Same goes for any software solution that you install as a user on the (remote) computer. So, depending on your usage scenarios and needs, you may need a KVM (or some other thing that connects physically to the keyboard/USB and monitor ports on the machine – remote network-based KVMs exist for this purpose) or possibly a piece of hardware installed inside the PC that acts as a remote KVM interface. (Example: Dell iDRAC for Dell servers.) I realize that your computers are going to be in the same room as you, so you won't need a remote solution, but depending on exactly what you need to do on a regular basis, having either a KVM or separate keyboard/monitor (per kschang's suggestion) may be important.
posted by StrawberryPie at 2:35 PM on October 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

Synergy is a good way to use multiple computers, but I don't think it is what you are asking for, because the various computers don't share a monitor. Each computer needs its own screen, and you use just one keyboard and mouse to control them.
If you want everything on one monitor then screen sharing/remote desktop is the usual answer. KVMs I guess still exist but they are more painful to set up.
posted by bitslayer at 3:51 PM on October 26, 2022 [2 favorites]

I'm going to go against the grain and suggest a HDMI USB KVM - USB-C switches exist, but they seem like they're either of dubious quality or breathtakingly expensive. If you already have a USB-C/Thunderbolt breakout that you plug your Macs into, then you just plug the HDMI outputs from those into the switch, and the single USB-A cable into the laptop dock / breakout. Works great for my 2 USB-C docked work laptops and Mac Mini.

(That said, I mostly use it to switch keyboard and mouse, with each laptop connected to a dedicated monitor, but that's because I need to be aware of what's happening in Teams in two environments. But careful finagling of the connections means I can just swap USB-C cables when I need to change which computer gets the Big Monitor and which one gets the smaller secondary screen.)
posted by Kyol at 7:22 PM on October 26, 2022 [2 favorites]

My current environment is very similar, minus one Mac. I have one Mac mini with a big big monitor and a PC laptop running Windows (for work).

I zoom, browse, slack from the Mac. When I need to do things on the PC, I just RDC over to it. Modern RDC (from Microsoft) is very fast and efficient.

I full screen the RDC client and three finger swipe back and forth. It’s great.

My one minor problem— you MUST have wired networking for the whole situation.
posted by gregvr at 7:32 PM on October 26, 2022

Nothing will be completely seamless, but my experience is that Remote Desktop/Screen Sharing has the least friction, followed by hardware KVM. Software KV is good if you don't care about moving programs between monitors, but I couldn't personally live with that limitation.

My experience is that Remote Desktop works okay over WiFi class AC connections, but would agree that using physical Ethernet connections is better.
posted by Aleyn at 3:59 PM on October 27, 2022

I have used Remote Desktop Client to the cloud over Wifi from a Mac and it's not bad. Latency is more important than throughput. Similarly, you can make the PC the "main" computer and connect to the Macs with VNC. I want to emphasize how much more flexible the software solutions are. You can easily keep an eye on the other computer without switching the whole desktop back and forth.
posted by wnissen at 5:05 PM on October 27, 2022