What does HackerNews think of display-switch?

The best option I've found is to hook both computers up to a USB-only KVM, and plug them in via separate video cables to the monitor. Then set up the computers to tell the monitor to change inputs (via DDC commands, which most but not all monitors support) when you change devices on the KVM

There's software to help do this automatically (https://github.com/haimgel/display-switch)

I have the same setup and use the following software to send the switch signal to the monitor.

https://github.com/haimgel/display-switch

I have a lo-fi version of this using a 4port usb-switcher and display-switch [0]

[0] https://github.com/haimgel/display-switch

The only thing you’d need to figure out is the standing desk part. My usb switch came with a wireless controller which is the main way I interact with it.

I have a personal computer, a work computer and a gaming computer and I switch between them using an Aten USB switch [1] and this software that switches monitor inputs when your plug/unplug USB devices [2]. Works quite well and costs less than 50€.

[1] https://www.amazon.de/dp/B00B1SENTE/

[2] https://github.com/haimgel/display-switch

I do the same thing (plug both computers directly into different inputs on the monitor but use a USB switch to switch the mouse & keyboard). If you install this software on both computers, you can eliminate the "switching via OSD" step, because it will watch for the USB connect / disconnect events and initiate the input switch automatically via the DDC connection to the monitors, so it gives you true one-touch KVM switching at the cost of a USB switch.

This works especially well in cases where an actual KVM switch would be expensive or unavailable (in my case, I'm switching three 4K HDR DisplayPort monitors, which would require a very expensive KVM switch).

https://github.com/haimgel/display-switch

Are you thinking of the display-switch[0] script? Achieves K/V/M-switching with only a cheap USB-switch for hardware K/M-switching, and then this script detects such peripheral switching and emits DDC-commands for monitors to switch accordingly.

I saw it posted here on HN[1], and have been using it since then with great success.

[0] https://github.com/haimgel/display-switch [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29608967

Not quite what you are asking for, but perhaps display-switch[0] can help. I'm too cheap to get a KVM which supports 2 4k monitors so I'm using display-switch instead. Works wonders.

[0] https://github.com/haimgel/display-switch

Even outside of impedence issues, you can't just use relays because then every switch is basically an unplug/replug, meaning that:

a) the display will flip out and spend multiple seconds re-syncing itself, and

b) the sources may take actions such as resizing the desktop, switching to the internal display, pausing the game, whatever.

Part of the point of a hardware KVM is that it negotiates its own connection to all of the devices involved, and only changes which signals are passed through at any given moment, resulting in instantaneous switchovers.

Now, a multi-input monitor can also do this, but then you have to deal with whatever compat issues are involved in commanding it to switch over DDC (see for example https://github.com/haimgel/display-switch), and it typically also won't be as fast as a hardware solution since input switching speed isn't a metric most people care about when monitor shopping.

There was a post[0] from a couple months ago for a piece of software called 'display-switch'[1]. It turns a simple/cheap USB switch into a n-computer KVM (however many systems the USB switch supports) by detecting the presence of the USB switch device on either system and switching the video input of the monitors using DDC/CI.

I've been using it for a couple of months and it's been a game changer. No more fiddling with monitor menus to switch inputs or wondering if the monitor is currently set to one computer or the other. You have to make sure your monitors support DDC/CI, though.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29608967 [1] https://github.com/haimgel/display-switch

If you get bored of the polling, there is a tool that does this in an event driven way:

https://github.com/haimgel/display-switch/ https://haim.dev/posts/2020-07-28-dual-monitor-kvm/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24357308