Astropad Luna Display - Laptop Screen Extender, Turn Your iPad or MacBook into a Wireless Monitor, Portable Dual Monitor Setup, USB-C Port Laptop Monitor Extender Compatible with Mac and Windows

I have a 2020 13" M1 Macbook Pro and a 2017 27" 5K iMac. Feeling drunk on the power of the Apple silicon, I decided I wanted to make the Macbook Pro my main computer. However, that screen... The 5K iMac screen is still great quality, and while the Intel-based iMac is quickly losing it's value, it still has value as a display. That being said, this model is not supported by Apple's AirPlay receiver, which left me with a conundrum: how can I use it as the primary display for my Macbook Pro? That's where the Luna comes in.Upon initial setup, I was a bit disappointed. There was a lot of input lag, and screen refresh lag was apparent when scrolling just about any web page. Additionally, video playback was stuttering. It was unusable. It defaults to a WIFI connection, which in my case was not usable as a primary display. So I dug into what would be required to get this working over a wire. There is an article in Luna's help section on getting the Luna working over Thunderbolt, and this is by far the preferred connection. It can be a little tricky, however. If you're having difficulty getting it working this way, here are a couple of pointers:1) use a good Thunderbolt cable2) make sure Internet sharing is disabled on both computers3) connect the computers together via thunderbolt (I'm going through a hub on the MBP side), and check Network settings for both computers. Ensure that, on both machines, you see a Thunderbolt bridge listed in the Network settings with a Self-assigned IP address (there should be a yellow status indicator).4) On the computer the Luna is connected to (the computer you want to see on the iMac, in my case the Macbook Pro) open the Luna settings, to to the Mac-to-Mac tab, and select "Connect via Thunderbolt only".If you follow these instructions, you should be able to use the iMac as a primary display. The quality is excellent (retina), the refresh rate is good (perhaps not as good as a native display, but close), and videos play back without stuttering.Here at my office, we also have this exact same setup working on a Mac Studio connected to another 27" 5K iMac, also working great. My only complaint is that once in a while (perhaps once a week), I will connect up to the iMac and lose my mouse cursor. It seems to come back after a few moments of mad clicking and shaking my mouse. Other than that, it's stable and looks great! Hope this helps.

I purchased this item in order to use an older iMac as the display for my new Mac mini. Ultimately, this product does what I need it to and works rather well. That said, the setup process was definitely *not* easy and took a great deal of time. Astropad, the manufacturer of this product, does not offer over-the-phone tech support so I had to figure most of this out on my own. The lack of such support is pretty frustrating for a device of this price.I set up the app for the product so that it should boot when my Mac mini starts up so that I don't need a second monitor other than my iMac. However, I often have to quit and restart the app on my Mac mini at startup to get it to work. I use a secondary MacBook in my office that I can use to view the screen of my Mac mini, but I'm sure this won't be a satisfactory option for most users.So, buy this with caution. I wouldn't recommend this product to anyone that isn't an advanced computer/Mac user and would recommend such users to still be prepared to spend hours setting this device up. That said, if you do manage to get this all set up correctly it is close to an ideal solution for using an old iMac as a screen.

I've been working from home for a few years now and have mostly used my personal late 2014 retina iMac for everything my agency does, but it's become clear over the last year that its obsolescence is approaching. My company sent me an M1 Macbook to keep up and I was excited to just link the two and continue using my 27 inch imac as a monitor, but quickly discovered that Apple apparently didn't support this vision. Research eventually let me to this device and having spent 48 hours with it - THIS IS THE FIXIf you're planning to go mac-to-mac with this YOU NEED AN ETHERNET CONNECTION. There's no getting around it. Wifi works but there's a noticeable lag and quite a bit of screen tearing/stuttering. With an ethernet connection, it works pretty much like a legit screen extender or mirror should. When you first launch the software there is noticeable "resolution buffering" for a few minutes if that makes sense. Like if I move a window, it blurs like its low res then pops back into crispness. It's kind of like when you would start a Netflix video and its low quality for the first minute but then works its way toward 4k. It only does this for a few minutes after connecting each time and then it eventually settles.Once things are up and running smoothly this product is perfect and everything I wanted and needed to be able to use my old iMac as a monitor for what I do at least. Just know that the Ethernet connection is a must.