Apologies if this type of question isn’t fit for the community, I’ll delete if so.
I’m going to start working from home again soon, and my desk setup is going to get very messy. I’m hoping to find a device that will let me easily manage 3 monitors between my personal laptop, my PS5, and my work computer.
I’d ideally like to set up “scenes”, like a work scene where monitors 2 and 3 are using my work computer and monitor 1 is acting as extended display for my laptop off to the left, or a gaming scene where my work computer isn’t displaying anything and my PS5 uses monitor 3 while monitors 1 and 2 are extending my laptop’s display, etc.
Are there any devices that would allow one to easily manage this sort of setup? I’d really rather not have to rewire all my HDMI cables every time I want to switch from working to gaming.
If it’s only displays being shared and not keyboards / mice / etc., there’s HDMI switchers that operate on a many-to-many basis (where you can have multiple inputs, multiple outputs, and route them as you please). You press the button for the output, then press the button for the input you want to route there, and they all work independently. Those definitely work with consoles. This isn’t exactly what OP is looking for, as the ones I’ve used don’t let you save ‘scenes’ like they’re describing, but they do let you switch displays around easily. Some of them are sketchy with PCs; whether OP wants one that lets the PCs think all of the monitors are always plugged in, or one that makes them think the monitors have been disconnected is kind of up to personal preference but that’s a consideration.
This sounds very close to what I’d want. Do you have any recommendations, even for devices that don’t have the option for scenes or presets?
We were using one for game consoles and 2 TVs but it was a long time ago. The exact name of what you want is an ‘HDMI Matrix Switcher’ and what you’ll very quickly see when you search that up is that the prices range wildly and go up into the thousands - you don’t need something of that caliber (that’s professional AV equipment level), but you should expect to pay a few hundred for one that has enough outputs.