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.

This is a perfect alternative to buying another monitor. We had to upgrade our Mac 27" to the MacStudio. My old Mac worked perfectly and I didn't want to just recycle it. Using the Luna, I, we, are able to have 2 monitors and it has saved a lot of frustration when working with large files in Photoshop and Lightroom. By having all the tools, history, and levels on one monitor, and working with corrections on the other, our work has gotten faster. Great Idea! Thank you!

I work from home full time. Have a 2021 MacBook Air from my job, and tried three different monitors (non Apple) before I realized for the price it was worth it for me (personally) to purchase an iMac to get the Apple quality Retina display + my first personal computer since 2011. Very disappointing (but not surprising) that Apple took away the ability to use the iMac as a monitor, did a ton of research, and the Luna was named as the better option. When it worked, it was fantastic. However, it didn’t work often enough to justify the cost/frustration. It muted some notifications but not others, was suuuuuper choppy/laggy, and overall made working slower. Not great. Was complaining to a friend who works as an IT person, and suggested I try the Mirror option. With some modifications, it works perfectly, and comes with the machine I already have, rather than having to buy a third party device (that barely works). So Luna is going back. Yes, it does mean my keyboard and mouse needs to be changed when I change devices (so not as seamless as Luna) but my work quality was suffering because of Luna’s buffering. It was NOT my Wifi — we even upgraded to try to make Luna work better, and nope. My fiancé tried to wire the computer to connect Luna directly to the Ethernet, but Luna doesn’t have that capability. So TL/DR, we tried, but Luna is too laggy to make work. PS — I’m mostly using Google docs/slack every day. It’s not like I’m doing anything that complicated….