Can anyone give me tips on how to hook up 2 monitors in 2 different rooms?

[Hieveryone]

I recently bought a MBPr 13 inch with a 2.6GHz processor, 8 GB ram, and a 256 GB SSD, and I love it!

I have 1 external monitor connected to it in my room.

What I want to do is hook up another external monitor to it downstairs so that my mom can use a guest account on it.

I would like to keep the MBPr in one place- either my room or hers.

 

[sonicrobby]

Well it depends on how far away the rooms are. Im thinking you could do a wireless keyboard and mouse, to keep in whichever room the macbook isnt in, that will control the macbook from somewhere else (though this is where the distance matters, youd need to find the wireless keyboard and mouse with a range large enough to smoothly control the macbook from another room. As far as display, I was thinking maybe an apple tv (assuming the away monitor has an HDMI input). That way you can mirror the screen onto the apple tv/other monitor. The issue with this is that you/she would probably have to go to the macbook to manually start the mirroring process. Or you could possibly always have the macbook on and mirroring, but if the monitor in her room is on, she will be able to see everything you might be doing.

 

[SquirrelGirl]

Airplay with an ATV?

If your house/wifi range has issues you may need an extension point for your wifi to reach both your monitor on the lower level and the RMBP. But I have a three story house, router in the lowest level and have no issues with wifi getting to every floor and square inch of our house effortlessly.

You will notice a serious drain on battery if she is using her own extended desktop to watch youtube vids while you are running your own tasks on your desktop, so plan to keep the rMBP plugged in.

 

[Hieveryone]

Airplay with an ATV?

If your house/wifi range has issues you may need an extension point for your wifi to reach both your monitor on the lower level and the RMBP. But I have a three story house, router in the lowest level and have no issues with wifi getting to every floor and square inch of our house effortlessly.

You will notice a serious drain on battery if she is using her own extended desktop to watch youtube vids while you are running your own tasks on your desktop, so plan to keep the rMBP plugged in.

Is it possible to get 2 desktops? Like she logs into a guest account while I login into my own account at the same time?

 

[sonicrobby]

Is it possible to get 2 desktops? Like she logs into a guest account while I login into my own account at the same time?

I dont believe so, youd need 2 separate computers for that

 

[SquirrelGirl]

Is it possible to get 2 desktops? Like she logs into a guest account while I login into my own account at the same time?

The Guest account I am not sure as I have never tried, but two separate desktops yes.

Airplay to an ATV allows mirroring (showing the exact same screen on extra displays) as well as separate desktops (she could even choose her own background, etc). You can also choose to have multiple desktops but have them work together, being able to float a window onto her/the other desktop from yours if you wanted.

As the person using the mac, you would have ultimate control when using extended desktop. You can cut Airplay off at any time if you are paranoid about what mom may (probably wouldn't anyhow) see at 3am, etc.

I have never felt the need to even try a guest account for my kid because you can set apps to only open up in your original desktop, so the alternate user can try to open torrents or some such app all they want because it will only open it on your display. For example you can have safari set to only open on your display, or always on hers, or work separately on both. Did that make sense?

I generally use airplay for the ability to run two completely different tasks at once, it works very well and is effortless. Just a click of an icon.