Luna Display and Adapters

If you're looking for an Astropad Luna product in Australia, please find them under this link

Can Luna be used with an adapter, hub, or dock?

We highly recommend plugging Luna directly into a compatible port on your Mac or Windows PC. Not every adapter uses the same communication protocols as our hardware, so we cannot guarantee that Luna will work with every adapter, hub, or dock setup. Using Luna with any adapters, hubs, or docks would be at your own discretion.

What about adapters on M1 Macs?

We recently did some testing with USB-C adapters on M1 Macs and found that the same adapters that worked on Intel-chip Macs did not work on M1 Macs. After a bit of research, we discovered that the API we need to use Mini DisplayPort on M1 Macs is not yet available. It is possible that Apple could add this in the future, but for now this unfortunately may not work.

Mini DisplayPort Luna

Thunderbolt and Thunderbolt 2 are typically backwards compatible and can accept both Thunderbolt and Mini DisplayPort (mDP) protocols. Luna uses mDP protocol so it is compatible with Thunderbolt, Thunderbolt 2, and mDP ports.

Certain adapters, like Apple's Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter, are not compatible with the mDP protocol (which is what mDP Luna uses), even though Thunderbolt 2 protocol is able to support mDP protocol.

From Apple's support article about Apple's Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter

The mDP Luna is not a Thunderbolt display, although Thunderbolt (and Thunderbolt 2) and mDP have the same shape. The mDP Luna only supports mDP and DisplayPort protocol. Thunderbolt support for Luna is not on our immediate roadmap.

Please note that the mDP Luna is only compatible with macOS at this time.

USB-C Luna

Just as not all USB-C ports can support displays, not all USB-C adapters will be compatible with Luna and other displays. The USB-C Luna uses DisplayPort Alt Mode. Not all USB-C ports and adapters support DisplayPort Alt Mode (a type of DisplayPort protocol) as this is an optional feature.

What is DisplayPort Alt Mode?

DisplayPort Alt Mode is a type of Alternate Mode (Alt Mode), which allows USB-C ports to transfer data and video using different protocols, like DisplayPort. The USB-C Luna uses DisplayPort Alt Mode, so it will need a port that supports this same protocol.

USB-C Port Types

What about a DisplayPort to HDMI adapter?

DisplayPort signals are typically not compatible with HDMI, though this may also depend if the port output supports single-mode or dual-mode DisplayPort protocol.

If the port supports dual-mode DisplayPort (also known as DP++), this means the port has the ability to adjust its signal to match HDMI signals, and you might be able to use a passive adapter or cable. If the port does not support dual-mode DisplayPort, then you would need to use an active adapter or cable to perform the signal conversion.

This is not something we have tested extensively yet, so it is not recommended.

Will you add Thunderbolt support to Luna?

Thunderbolt support for Luna is not on our immediate roadmap at this time. Thunderbolt connectors on computers are essentially backwards compatible with a version of the DisplayPort protocol, so connections are not an issue when connected directly to a port on a Mac or PC.