The one-cable desk: cable management by having fewer cables

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Cable management products manage a problem you can mostly avoid. Desk № 001 has two computers, two screens, a microphone, a webcam, a keyboard, a mouse, a button pad and three lights, and one cable leaves the work machine. This is how, and where it still falls short.

The monitor is the dock

The Dell U4025QW has a Thunderbolt 4 hub built in: two Thunderbolt ports, five USB-A, two USB-C, 2.5-gigabit Ethernet and 140 W of power delivery. So the Mac mini M5 Pro connects with one Thunderbolt cable, and the keyboard receiver, the Stream Deck, the microphone, the webcam and the network all plug into the back of the monitor. Buying a display with a real hub cost more than a display without one; it cost less than a display plus a good dock, and it removed a box from the desk.

“The hub/KVM let me retire a dock.” — T.R., owner of Desk № 001

Two computers, one button

The M4 mini sits beside the M5 Pro as the always-on background machine. It also connects to the Dell over Thunderbolt, and the Dell’s built-in KVM switches the keyboard, mouse and the whole hub between the two hosts with one button. Before the Dell arrived, an AV Access KD-E20 dock did that job; it still sits under the shelf, and whether anything still passes through it is, in the owner’s words, an open question. Its limitation on a Mac was that macOS mirrors its two outputs rather than extending them, which the Dell’s KVM does not suffer from.

The second screen rides the first

The Dell Pro 14 Plus portable monitor sits under the main display and daisy-chains off the Dell’s downstream Thunderbolt port, so it adds no cable to the computer. The catch is worth repeating because it is silent: after plugging it in, the main display dropped to 60 Hz until Thunderbolt Daisy Chain was set to Optimized in the Dell’s menu. Check the refresh rate after any change to the chain.

Hide the rest under a shelf

What is left is power: two mini power cables, the monitor’s, the lights’ USB leads. All of it lives under the Balolo shelf, which raises the display and hides both computers, the old dock and the cables behind its front edge. An under-desk power channel on the Desky holds the bricks so they travel with the top when the desk rises. Three outlets in that channel was not enough; a desk with this many devices wants six.

Where it still falls short

Honest list from the desk page: the cables need re-routing every time the desk moves; the Litra Glows have 1.5 m USB-A leads that only just reach the hub; and the ScreenBar’s controller is the one battery-powered thing on the desk. The Govee lamps each need their own outlet at floor level.

If you are buying today

Buy the hub with the display, not after. Then count: one Thunderbolt or USB-C from the computer, one mains lead per device, and everything else lives behind the monitor. If your computer is a laptop, the same single cable also charges it, which is the whole point. A dock is the right answer only when the display you want has no hub.

TBD — from the owner. A photo of the back of the desk with the shelf lifted, which cables are still routed badly, and whether the AV Access dock is still in the chain.