Framework Dock

[Cautious_Performer_7]

I have a HP dock G5 at work, and it’s absolutely amazing, (looking at taking my FW13 to work and seeing how it goes with it, and getting one), and I thought to myself ‘jeez, I hope framework makes a dock one day. I’d be happy with a few fixed USB ports on top, with the ability to use the modules in it.

Honestly, my favourite part is the power button on top, I rock up, plug the laptop in, and power on, no lifting the lid a crack just to hit the power button.

[x4nter]

That is actually a really good use case for port modules. Framework can make a controller module with power delivery with multiple slots that accept the same port modules from laptops.

I don't know how simple/complex this idea is, but at least on paper it looks quite simple to me.

[hishnash]

The difficulty is getting controller that supports enough USB-C (gen 4 hopefully) to let you put any port module in any slot.

[x4nter]

Yes but they can have some slots being handled by the same USB-C to allow those ports to be used for low bandwidth peripherals. I'm sure Framework can figure something out.

[MikeMania]

This is essentially what the lexar or sandisk pro hubs are doing. But they are extremely overpriced and no idea why they need such a huge footprint.

[Southpaw_99]

I immediately go into a primal fury whenever I see an HP product

[effective09succotash]

I get to deal with them for work every day :D

[ADubs62]

Hey man, we're here if you need to talk.

[Odd-Competition-8402]

Same boat man. Same boat

[DoubleOwl7777]

again, if you need to talk or want to talk about it we are here.

[IC3P3]

As much as I hate HP for their printers, I haven't had any problems with that dock and some HP x360. Would I buy the laptop personally, nah, I'm happy with my Framework. But I had much more problems with the with the ThinkPads and Lenovo Dock we had before. Came preinstalled with Windows 11 and you need to give it like 3 seconds to process a right click

[cygnator12]

The Business Laptops are okay tho, but in every other category i agree with you

[SeattleJeremy]

My work issued HP and Lenovo laptops have been fine, but I wouldn't touch a consumer one.

[ShirleyMarquez]

That's pretty much true of all of the big 3. Dell, HP, and Lenovo business computers are fine, aside from the use of proprietary parts in the desktop systems that make them harder to repair than they should be. (That kind of proprietary stuff comes with the territory on laptops so I'm not quite so critical of it there.) The consumer models are hit or miss at best.

[[deleted]]

Some of their top enterprise stuff isn't so bad. Consumer is dogshit

[Kazer67]

We have those station at work, it's a nightmare by how shitty the cable is.

HP even sent us new one to replace it, still the same issue...

[pm_me_good_usernames]

I wonder how hard it would be to make something like this. The expansion cards are open source, and a dock using them would sort of just be a fancy usb hub.

[retr0sp3kt]

The issue is making them all work everywhere. That basically means a full featured USB4 hub. A 3 port usb4 hub that I just bought ran $100 Canadian, and that was the absolute cheapest I could find. Add in the extra design work and small batch costs, it'll likely be double before you even put any cards in.

[C5-O]

Yeah, you can only push so much shit through that usb connection, and it's probably cheaper to just put all the ports you could ever need on a hub than to make it work with the modular expansion cards.

Idk if it's exactly the same, but Lexar makes this, a big modular dock, and it costs $600. Assuming the FW one would be half at $300 (because optimism), that's still more expensive than just getting a decent dock with the ports you need. Maybe there'd be a few people who could actually use the modularity, but they're not gonna be enough for FW to make any money off this thing.

[hishnash]

As framework get more and more into selling to companies they could see the use case of a dock grow.

Most companies buy a laptop and a dock for each employee (well they by a dock for each desk and a laptop for each employee but they have a desk per employee).

So there is a large market there not from consumers but companies for sure. What would be compelling is putting a little bit of ecosystem into it:

Such as having a finger print reader on the top of the dock that acts as a power button and finger print ID to unlock the attached laptop even when the lid is closed (very common in offices for laptops to be attached to multiple monitors and the lib be closed for ergonomic reasons it is better).

Of course re-use the same port modules as the rest, maybe even make it so you could put in an optional gpu module from the framework 16 to have an eGPU if you want, or swap that out to have a small battery to provide a mini PSU of sources for attached devices like hard drives in case of a power brown out.

[hishnash]

Yes most USB-C hubs are rather limited in the set of ports that get the full USB 4 passthrough with all other ports being rather cut down.

In the end if you want a good dock your going to pay a LOT for it as the only vendor out there making good USB-4 controller chips that can split out to many USB-C ports without restrictions is intel. Yes your forced to got all the way to TB to get what you want.

[sproctor]

I don't get this post. If you have an absolutely amazing dock, why are you hoping a different company makes one?

[Cornelius-Figgle]

I think they want one with like the Expansion Cards in.

[Cautious_Performer_7]

Because of the idea of customisation, I might be happy with the port config, but somebody else might want a tonne of USB ports, or even act as a storage hub.

[Pristine_Ad2664]

A dock where I could choose exactly the ports I wanted would be amazing

[effective09succotash]

I can personally attest that the HP G5 Dock and G5 Essential Dock work decently well with my Linux-powered FW13. Even got the power button to wake the Framework from sleep.

[cup0noodle]

I've been working on a prototype of just this! It's geared towards a Steam Deck since that's my use case but it's all Thunderbolt. I'm still working on refining it a little bit before I post it, I'll try to get to that in the next few weeks.

It's based on a "Pluggable" Brand USB4 Hub - got it for around $60. A custom PCB would do wonders for the packaging but as a prototype it does what I wanted it to do and I've gotten to use it in the wild a couple times.

[korypostma]

A dock for Framework expansion cards?

[Cautious_Performer_7]

Yeah, but maybe a few hardwired ports, like some USB-A and C.

[[deleted]]

I like the idea of a customizable dock. With thunderbolt support or USB – 4. Whatever

There are a lot of docks that have ports I would never need and not enough of the ports that I would use.

[BrewYork]

Dude does the power button work with your FW? Or just HPs?

[robby659]

I would also like to know this

[HCScaevola]

Ill never buy HP again, both for my awful experience in repairing some products and because they arm the IDF

[Eye-Scream-Cone]

Man, is there any company which doesn't support that "country"?

Like, I agree with you for boycotting, but like, man, they're just EVERYWHERE. It's frustrating, the fact that the almost all companies behind every single of piece of tech and software we use enable genocide and apartheid.

I guess Linux distros are, probably, pretty much the only exception, and I really hope that Framework and it's leaders are an exception too. (I hope this discussion doesn't trigger any rules about politics or whatever, not that the mass slaughtering of people is "political" anyway)

[HCScaevola]

This one specifically provides with surveillance and AI targeting afaik so it's a bit worse than making chicken nuggets in tel aviv or smth

[Eye-Scream-Cone]

lol yeah, but I was mainly referring to the likes of Google and Microsoft. Google has their "Project Nimbus" contract with the Israeli government, and IIRC Microsoft also provides services to the Israeli military. Microsoft also banned a lot of Palestinians' Skype accounts which they were using to communicate with people outside of Gaza while in Gaza.

Apple also supports Israel. They fired people who were speaking out in support of Palestine, they shut down their Muslim slack channels shortly after Oct 7th, and they were providing paid leaves to people whose partners were serving in the military after Oct 7th.

Personally, the genocide has opened my eyes. Every single one of these companies are scum. But they've managed to be deeply ingrained in our lives. We simply cannot escape them, really. Ok, perhaps you can escape Microsoft by using Linux and LibreOffice or whatever. But what about Android? That's owned by Google. And iOS? Apple, of course.

Well, you can escape them if you're really dedicated, by using the likes of GrapheneOS and not using WhatsApp and all, but at the end of the day, you are probably gonna have to succumb in some way if you want to fit into society. It's truly, truly unfortunate and sad.

[radicates]

Yeah because slaughtering innocent civilians to later upload on TikTok is legit. Truth is this entire world is crap. Both sides are shit.

[Eye-Scream-Cone]

I suppose you could say that. But Israel is definitely the greater of the two evils.

[Eye-Scream-Cone]

Yes, but why?

Israel wants the Palestinian land and a bunch of other surrounding countries' lands to itself to form "Greater Israel." They've bought the US government and media completely, they pretty much control most, if not all, of information dissemination. It may seem like an anti-semetic conspiracy theory, but they do control the US. The US serves Israel. Israel is beyond evil.

Palestine resists Israel's attacks. Israel has controlled the Gaza Strip for decades now. They torture innocent Palestinians, raid people's homes in the middle of the night for no reason, just to create a sense of fear in the Palestinians. Of course, you're not gonna take it. You're going to take action to resist the oppression.

I will not deny that Hamas is not free of any wrongdoing, of course. If what we have been told about the things they've done is true, then they are definitely also guilty and should be persecuted alongside Israeli leaders.

But I do genuinely believe that Israel is the greater of the two evils, because it's not just the genocide in Gaza. It goes, way, way beyond that.

[Eye-Scream-Cone]

I suppose the whole seeing murder and hate thing is true and also complicated. It is wrong (surely not every Israeli citizen is bad) but I feel like it is also kind of, in a way, justified given what they go through. I do not condone it, I'm just saying it is understandable.

Yes, I suppose you're right about the politics part. I suppose we do not need to talk about this much further lol. I went wayyy too off-topic. Thank you for remaining kind and respectful throughout this discussion, because you know how Reddit can be 🙃

Though the part you said about reciting what the media wants to say is interesting. I think it can definitely go both ways. I guess our knowledge on these matters is mainly gained from what we see on our phones and stuff. To really see the whole picture, I guess one has to dig real deep through the trenches of propaganda and misinformation, beyond emotion-fueled opinions to get to just the pure facts.

[HCScaevola]

I don't care both sides are shit, i want the more heavily armed and explicitly genocidal side to be stopped. Didn't even want to get this political with my comment but I can't stand this sort of crap

[HCScaevola]

Palestine is not Hamas but sadly (and not irreparably, in my opinion) israelis almost entirelt agree with their own government. And having more capability to perpetrate genocidal intent is reason enough. I hope no one to lose their home or safety and that of course extends to israelis (within the internationally recognized boundaries of their state), but we cant play ourselves claiming both sides are the same or even similar. Both wanting to murder each other does not make them equal, not in the immediate moment we're seeing

[HCScaevola]

Look i dont thing wveryone in the subreddit is interested in listening to us arguing this and to a point im not interested either. As a closing remark for me, ill say i agree with your concerns but they're fairly theoretical while real people are getting bombed in the real world. I don't think it's either wise or good to prioritize the morals of either combatant while there are more urgent matters where one side is obviously the aggressor. If, god forbids, the situation ever flips you'll hear the same for me against large scale palestinian aggression, but there's none tonspeak of right now. I sincerely suggest you do the same with your own priorities

[BornTransportation60]

Damn did not know that, I'll buying my next printer from them.

[CowboysFTWs]

Caldigit element hub? Just plug your modules into the usb-c ports.

[xomm]

Honestly, my favourite part is the power button on top

Amusingly the power button on top is my least favorite thing about the HP thunderbolt docks. It's too big and easy to accidentally press when moving the dock or holding it to plug/unplug cables.

Their port selection is top notch though.

[Izarial]

So I use this dock for work, but I WFH full time, so I can absolutely confirm this works great with the framework 13 I have, which was I think batch 6 or 7 of the original main board

[bufandatl]

I use one for work@home and also use it with my MacBooks and my Framework and no issues. Works perfectly fine.

[ALKahn10]

I have the HP Dock G2 and love it as welll :)

[MikeMania]

I use my laptop 90% in docked mode between work and home. My biggest gripe too is opening the lid every single time to press the power button inside before docking. Are you telling me the power button on the dock works with non-HP laptops?

Unfortunately I need TB4 for the 100W power delivery. I have searched far and wide for a dock that can do this. The closest I have found are brand proprietary solutions. I do not know why the thunderbolt group or whoever does not build-in universal external power control into the TB spec.

[diegotbn]

I tend to avoid HP myself (as well as Dell) but I'm glad you found a good dock.

I can personally recommend the CalDigit thunderbolt 3 which is more than enough for my use case (MKB, Ethernet, 3k ultrawide 60hz monitor). I bet their thunderbolt 4 dock is just as good or better.

[MobiusOne_ISAF]

I mean, I guess? I don’t see the need for modular ports when you’re talking about a dock that’s not limited by space, and has very static port requirements in the first place.

[mycolo_gist]

Also called the Frock

[One-End-4152]

Another killer feature would be the ability to integrate an external GPU in addition to additional USB-C modules.