MacRumors Giveaway: Win a Luna Display Adapter to Turn Your iPad or Mac Into an Extra Screen

[joecomo]

With an iPad I may see the case (there is sidecar however) - but with a MacBook the keyboard is always in the way.
I used my MacBookPro on my desk with an external screen only as a fingerprint reader - because of the fan noise I have even stopped to do that and have it stored away in clamshell mode.

 

[dazzer21-2]

As a user of Sidecar daily for a good few months now with my MBP, I'm surprised to hear of the lagginess/crashiness of it because I've found it to be flawless - solid connection, excellent performance and the instant ability to change the iPad's position to either side of the laptop... I personally don't see the point of this dongle as I've never felt the need to use my MBP screen as an extention of my iMac's - but everyone has their own use-case scenarios so I guess it exists for a reason...

 

[andrzejm007]

Sidecar is useless without Apple Pencil.
That ends any discussion about other potential issues (or at least far less important) with Luna or duet.

 

[brookter1]

Does this allow you to emulate the old very-useful-but-now-no-longer-available-in-new-macs Target Display feature? I thinking of getting a new iMac and would like to use the old one (27" 2017 model) as a second display, but I can't because they turned the feature off for iMacs sometime before 2017.

Would the Lunar display allow me to use it with the same quality and function as the old Target Display mode?

 

[sirozha]

I use both Luna and Sidecar, and both have different strengths and weaknesses. On the whole, Luna tends to hold on to connections better than Sidecar for me, but Sidecar is my preferred on-the-road solution. Mostly though, Luna supports mac-to-mac which Sidecar does not, and thats useful often enough that I'd willingly pay to replace the dongle if I lost it.

Can you connect a MacBook to a 5K iMac via a cable with Luna? I tried Luna via IP to my late 2014 5K iMac, and it was way too laggy. The compression artifacts were terrible, so I promptly returned the Luna. But I was unaware it could be connected via Thunderbolt. Can it use Thunderbolt 2?

 

[sirozha]

Does this allow you to emulate the old very-useful-but-now-no-longer-available-in-new-macs Target Display feature? I thinking of getting a new iMac and would like to use the old one (27" 2017 model) as a second display, but I can't because they turned the feature off for iMacs sometime before 2017.

Would the Lunar display allow me to use it with the same quality and function as the old Target Display mode?

Target display mode was disabled in the first 5K iMac, which was released in late 2014. The reason was the fact that Thunderbolt 2 doesn’t have enough bandwidth for 5K without compression. I’m not sure why Target display wasn’t enabled in iMacs that have Thunderbolt 3.

 

[kyeblue]

duet is an app cost $10 and works flawlessly linking ipad as a second monitor

i often have issues with sidecar dropping wifi

 

[brookter1]

Target display mode was disabled in the first 5K iMac, which was released in late 2014. The reason was the fact that Thunderbolt 2 doesn’t have enough bandwidth for 5K without compression. I’m not sure why Target display wasn’t enabled in iMacs that have Thunderbolt 3.

Thanks for the info: it worked with my old 2011, but not with the 2017, so that makes sense.

Does anyone know whether the quality via Thunderbolt 5K Mac to 5K Mac is acceptable?

 

[Apple_Robert]

I think Sidecar has basically removed the need for the Luna option for me.

 

[jwhazel]

Thanks for the info: it worked with my old 2011, but not with the 2017, so that makes sense.

Does anyone know whether the quality via Thunderbolt 5K Mac to 5K Mac is acceptable?

Depends on your threshold of “acceptable”. Luna cannot output 5k resolution. So your secondary display will be 2560x1440. Using a thunderbolt connection will drop latency dramatically, to the point where it’s pretty much not even noticeable. But sadly doesn’t increase the quality of video output. You’ll still see compression artifacts when scrolling text or moving windows.

I have a work mbp15 and a personal imac5k. I consider Luna acceptable when I’m working from home and occasionally need more screen real estate. I can use my iMacs keyboard and mouse to seamlessly control the mbp and when I’m done I exit and have my personal iMac back. It’s not perfect but for me it’s way better than dropping $$$ for another monitor and another keyboard/mouse. In your situation if you *only* want to use the old iMac as a display, you’re better off selling it and buying a dedicated external.

I think Sidecar has basically removed the need for the Luna option.

As has been noted in this thread, numerous times, Luna does things that sidecar doesn’t.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Depends on your threshold of “acceptable”. Luna cannot output 5k resolution. So your secondary display will be 2560x1440. Using a thunderbolt connection will drop latency dramatically, to the point where it’s pretty much not even noticeable. But sadly doesn’t increase the quality of video output. You’ll still see compression artifacts when scrolling text or moving windows.

I have a work mbp15 and a personal imac5k. I consider Luna acceptable when I’m working from home and occasionally need more screen real estate. I can use my iMacs keyboard and mouse to seamlessly control the mbp and when I’m done I exit and have my personal iMac back. It’s not perfect but for me it’s way better than dropping $$$ for another monitor and another keyboard/mouse. In your situation if you *only* want to use the old iMac as a display, you’re better off selling it and buying a dedicated external.


As has been noted in this thread, numerous times, Luna does things that sidecar doesn’t.

I failed to be specific enough to say (for me). Sidecar works for me. I don't need another dongle.

 

[JosephAW]

I’d have to buy a dongle to plug it into my MBP

 

[brookter1]

Depends on your threshold of “acceptable”. Luna cannot output 5k resolution. So your secondary display will be 2560x1440. Using a thunderbolt connection will drop latency dramatically, to the point where it’s pretty much not even noticeable. But sadly doesn’t increase the quality of video output. You’ll still see compression artifacts when scrolling text or moving windows.

I have a work mbp15 and a personal imac5k. I consider Luna acceptable when I’m working from home and occasionally need more screen real estate. I can use my iMacs keyboard and mouse to seamlessly control the mbp and when I’m done I exit and have my personal iMac back. It’s not perfect but for me it’s way better than dropping $$$ for another monitor and another keyboard/mouse. In your situation if you *only* want to use the old iMac as a display, you’re better off selling it and buying a dedicated external.

That's exactly the sort of information I was hoping for. New monitor it will be.

Thank you very much!

 

[masterin]

I was going to preorder the Luna dongle, but then I found out the new HDMI version will be Windows only :/
I am running an M1 mini... and baby, usb-c's I just can't spare...

 

[ThunderSkunk]

I could see getting one of these. I held off because I was waiting for what became sidecar, which I assumed would surely blow all the 3rd party options out of the water because it would be wired. Then sidecar turned out to be crashy, have limited pencil support, and still require WiFi anyway, making it useless.

 

[jlc1978]

duet is an app cost $10 and works flawlessly linking ipad as a second monitor

i often have issues with sidecar dropping wifi

I've used Duet since it came out but once they went to a subscription model and stripped out a bunch of features I stopped using it since the base version is basically Sidecar for $10. Luna is more expensive to start but at least it's a one time purchase.

I’d have to buy a dongle to plug it into my MBP

What connectors do you have? If you have a mini DP they have a version for that as well.

 

[WestonHarvey1]

depends on the connection method for both. If wired (usb cable), there is no latency at all. For using WiFi, I haven't notice any delay as long as I have a good connection/router (i.e. poor wifi signal in cafe introduce 50-200ms delays).

EDIT:
To add comparison between built-in screenshare and Luna, it is no brainer. Luna relies on dongle which means you cannot do wired connection.

Is it better than that Mac's Screen Sharing app? I've found that works well enough as my "KVM" solution on a fast Wifi network. Slightly different use case here but basically the same idea.