I got my Spectrums and are now looking into how I can make the best use of them given my
current home office setup. I have the monitors primarily hooked up via DP to my personal workstation.
The left screen I usually also plug into my work laptop via USB-C whenever I need to work from home.
My previous Dell monitor allowed me to setup a primary and secondary source (ie. if the primary was connected it would automatically select that, falling back to the second source otherwise). I’d love to do the same with the Spectrum. Where USB-C would be selected as primary if connected, falling back to DP if I disconnect my work laptop. Is this something that is planned @Lore_Wonder@ReignDespair
I have also looked into DDC/CI control. Controlling brightness works fine, but it seems that with FW 104 I am unable to switch input sources. Both on MacOS X and Windows sending any input change command (VCP 0x60) just results in a brief black screen flash but no change in actual input. Is this something that the FW team is going to fix? (Assuming yes as the monitor advertises support for VCP 0x60)
I remember using DDC switching inputs being raised as not working by someone in the past. I’m having a lot of trouble finding the exact posts though, and the forum search isn’t helping.
The best I’ve been able to uncover is this:
We’ve already discovered that the Spectrum appears to be “turned off” to everything except the current input source. This no doubt also affects the ability to receive DDC commands. I don’t know if this is something that can be changed by a firmware update or if it’s hardware limitation or circuit board design issue.
Yeah, this I can confirm. All DDC tools loose the monitor if it’s active input is switched to a different machine/source. But even if it’s connected the switch input command doesn’t work. I would love for this to get fixed in a future firmware revision. Hence the ask for some board or list or tracker that allows the community to keep track and vote on issues that matter to them.
Thanks for the tag, guys. I tried a lot of different things, and while I could control a lot of the settings of the monitor like color settings and such, as well as volume, but trying to switch inputs failed hard.
One thing that did improve was the ability to manually turn the monitor off (and perhaps putting it into standby mode).
I do know that better DDC support has been brought up with the firmware team, and in reading through the communications, it is still being actively worked on. Unfortunately, that is all we know at the moment.
That’s good to hear. I already had a look at some source code to see how DDC commands can be sent with Windows. If we can ever get this to work with the Spectrum I feel inclined to start a little open source utility project targeted at Spectrum users that want to use KVM-like functionality (single and multi monitor).
That awesome! I used ClickMonitor 7.2 but never could find the source for it. I was considering the same thing, myself, especially with the large number of very basic DDC control apps (like those that simply adjust brightness, or just brightness and contrast). It’s good to see someone else who also has the same idea!
Just piling on here as I just (finally) received my Spectrum. I love it, but really want it to support DDC commands from my PC even if it is not the active input, or if the display is in standby.
My use case is I have a Stream Deck button pad on my system and want to assign hotkeys to it for the inputs - the only way this is viable is if the DDC input commands work not only when the PC is active (ie, DisplayPort), but also when it is not (ie, USB-C, or HDMI1/2).
This addition would make my setup just about perfect for me. Thanks for considering!
I wonder if someone was lucky enough to make Volume control work over DDC with macOS. Firmware 106 allows control of brightness via a set of free tools, but volume adjustment has no effect on monitor settings.