Aten USB-C Gen 2 Sharing Switch
You’ll like this if you constantly connect USB devices between two computers.
You might be familiar with a KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) switch that lets you plug two computers into one monitor, keyboard and mouse, and you use a button to switch between the two computers. At first glance the Aten US3342 might appear to be a KVM, but it is not! The Aten US3342 is a “sharing switch” that uses the huge bandwidth of USB-C Gen 2 to allow a single keyboard and mouse to operate two separate computers simultaneously.
The main difference between the US3342 and a KVM is that there’s no video output. The US3342 is purely for sharing USB inputs. An easy way to conceptualise the US3342 is that it’s a USB switch. Press a button and the USB peripherals plugged in to the US3342 work on one computer. Press the button again and the USB peripherals work on the other computer. Press the button a third time and the USB devices are re-connected to the first computer.
If you’re constantly swapping USB devices between two computers the US3342 will make life easier for you – just make sure to unmount/eject any hard disks or USB flash drives before switching, as pressing the switch is the same as physically unplugging the USB device and some storage devices don’t like it when that happens.
As far as being a simple USB switch goes, the US3342 is well designed. Tough metal case, clear lights to indicate which computer is active and a separate physical switch with a long cord you can keep close to you for fast switching. The US3342 works on Mac and PC, so if you have a Windows laptop and a Mac laptop you want to switch between, the US3342 has you covered. The US3342 also supports up to 85W of USB-C PD charging on compatible devices, but you need to bring your own USB-C power supply as there isn’t one in the box.
Aten includes a free piece of software called Bezel X with the US3342, which allows you to share the keyboard and mouse between the computers without having to press a physical switch. With Bezel X your two computers act as if they are one, with the mouse and keyboard input flowing between them as if they were external displays. The clipboard is retained between computers and superfast file transfer between the two computers is possible thanks to the 10Gbps USB-C connection – even between a Mac and a PC. It’s very nifty but keyboard and mouse sharing software like Synergy works really well over a local network and is free, so this functionality alone probably isn’t worth buying the US3342 for.
The US3342 isn’t something every computer nerd needs, but if you’re annoyed at frequently having to plug and unplug USB devices into two computers the Aten US3342 will relieve you of that burden for $199.