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Is There Now a Gadget or Mod You Can Buy to Turn the 5K Intel iMacs Into an External Monitor?
- Thread starter Alvin777
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If you are happy with the idea of electronic self-assembly all the information is in this thread, where questions which Luke Miani skips over in his video are answered:
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DIY 5k Monitor - success :-)
My "latest Macs" are a heavily upgraded 2009 Mac Pro (6c CPU, M.2 SSD, USB 3, RX580...) and more recently a 12c 2013 Mac Pro with an eGPU (Vega 56) - both machines with more than enough CPU power, GPU power and RAM for my needs, but I long aspired to upgrade to a nice 5k monitor to replace my...
forums.macrumors.com
Luna Display doesn't technically make your iMac into a (dumb) monitor, since the iMac still has to run macOS. But it does seem to effectively (and easily) make it into a 5K monitor to extend your screen. I haven't tried it yet but I'm intrigued.
https://astropad.com/blog/step-by-step-guide-how-to-use-your-imac-as-a-monitor/
They say "supports the full 5K iMac resolutions, works with Mac or PC, and can connect over USB, Wifi, Ethernet or Thunderbolt. Plus we’ve gone out of our way to make it work on iMacs going back to 2011"
They claim (on that page) that no other solutions (Airplay, Duet Display) offer full 5K resolution (aside from ripping the iMac apart to make it a hardware monitor, I guess!). There's a one-time cost of $90 for the dongle.
The downside, for me, is that using a higher-bandwidth connection requires two ports on the primary machine (in my case, a 2024 Mini with M4 Pro chip). "The Luna Display dongle must be plugged into a USB-C port that supports Thunderbolt or DisplayPort." For me that means it must be one of the three Thunderbolt-5 ports on the rear of the Mini (using my last one), as the front USB-C ports don't support monitors.
Then, a cable between the Mini and the iMac. (Apparently you can use WiFi or ethernet networking, but I'm ignoring those as likely too low-bandwidth to be enjoyable. Maybe I'm wrong?) Since my 2015 iMac has USB 3.0 ports, I could use a USB-A (iMac) to USB-C (front of Mini) cable for 5 Mbps connection (cheap), or a Thunderbolt-2 to Thunderbolt-3 adapter and cable to get a 20 Mbps connection. (Add $50 for the Apple adapter, and I'd have to drop my external Thunderbolt storage or buy a Thunderbolt dock.)
My understanding is that the higher bandwidth your connection, the better the resolution and refresh rate you can set. The nice thing is (if I'm reading correctly), you get some control over that. Full 5K resolution might not have a good enough refresh rate for fast-moving graphics, but be fine for PDFs and web pages; alternatively, you can lower the resolution to increase the refresh rate if that works better for your usage. Again, I'm just reading about it -- I haven't tried it at this point.
If anyone has used Luna Display, I'd be interested to hear opinions/feedback about it -- particularly if you've used it with a 5 Mbps USB connection.
It's a very cool concept, but you do have to realize you lose the webcam, speakers and mic. Maybe not the end of the world, but something to consider. You're not going to end up with an equivalent to the Apple Studio Display.If you are happy with the idea of electronic self-assembly all the information is in this thread, where questions which Luke Miani skips over in his video are answered:
DIY 5k Monitor - success :-)
My "latest Macs" are a heavily upgraded 2009 Mac Pro (6c CPU, M.2 SSD, USB 3, RX580...) and more recently a 12c 2013 Mac Pro with an eGPU (Vega 56) - both machines with more than enough CPU power, GPU power and RAM for my needs, but I long aspired to upgrade to a nice 5k monitor to replace my...
@ignatius345 "...you lose the webcam, speakers and mic. Maybe not the end of the world..."
The speakers you can include or modify during the conversion*.
And for webcam and audio, Apple provides the exact solution, with all the s/w enhancements MacOS provides:
Continuity camera, using an iPhone.
*You don't have to go to such lengths to get a working monitor conversion.
The original speakers sound fine...
The speakers you can include or modify during the conversion*.
And for webcam and audio, Apple provides the exact solution, with all the s/w enhancements MacOS provides:
Continuity camera, using an iPhone.
*You don't have to go to such lengths to get a working monitor conversion.
The original speakers sound fine...
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That's great, did not realize. Thanks for the tip.
That's a good point.