We put up a sign-up form for DockFrame back in December. Three months later, 704 people told us what they want from a modular USB-C hub. We read every single response. This post is what we learned, and what we're doing about it.

Thank You, Framework

First things first. The Framework team has been unbelievably generous with us. They wrote about DockFrame on their blog, shared it on their social channels, and put us in their newsletter (which, as you'll see in the charts below, basically broke our sign-up form). They also sent us a mainboard so we can actually test our stuff against real Framework hardware. For a tiny team like ours, that kind of help from a company we look up to is huge. Thank you.

The Numbers

The form went live on December 7, 2025. For the first few weeks it was mostly word-of-mouth, Reddit, and some tech press (PC Gamer and Notebookcheck both picked it up, which was cool). Growth was steady but nothing crazy.

Then on February 27, Framework put us in their newsletter. 211 sign-ups in one day. That's more than our entire first month. The chart speaks for itself:

What You Actually Want to Do With It

Our form had one open-ended question: "How do you plan to use DockFrame?" No checkboxes. Just a text box. We went through all 662 written responses and grouped them by theme.

No real surprises at the top: most people want a dock they can customize. Pick the ports you need, swap them later if your setup changes. Pretty straightforward.

What did surprise us was how many of you have Framework Expansion Cards just sitting in a box. You bought extras, or you upgraded, and now they're collecting dust. DockFrame gives them a home.

Tool Cards: The Part That Gets People Excited

The USB hub part is useful, sure. But the Tool Cards are where people really light up. These are custom cards that slot into DockFrame and turn it into a multimeter, a bench power supply, or a dev board. We asked what you'd want most:

Multimeter and Power Supply won by a mile. A lot of you are engineers, students, or hobbyists who want something compact on their desk without dragging out a full bench setup for quick measurements.

Feature Requests for the Hub Itself

Separate from Tool Cards, people told us what they want the hub to do. We tagged every request and counted:

Display output is the big one. People want to plug in one USB-C cable and get their monitor, power, and peripherals all at once. Framework 16 owners keep asking about 240W PD for the dGPU. And a bunch of you want a metal chassis so it doesn't slide around when you yank a cable out.

We're looking into all of these. Some are more realistic than others for v1, and we'd rather be honest about that than promise the moon. More on this below.

What You Think It Should Cost

We didn't give price ranges. We just asked. 54 people volunteered a number:

Most of you land between $50 and $100 for the base hub. Some are willing to go to $150 for a proper dock with PD and video. Tool Cards, you'd expect to pay $20 to $50 each.

We get it. Nobody wants to pay $300 for a dock. But hardware at small volumes isn't cheap, and we don't want to cut corners on quality either. We'll share final pricing when we launch on Crowd Supply, and we'll do our best to stay in that range.

What We're Doing About All This

Look, we can't ship every feature at once. We're a small team. But your feedback tells us exactly where to focus, so here's where your input is already changing the design:

Isolation on the Multimeter Card

Several engineers wrote in specifically about this. If you're measuring mains voltage through a USB-connected card, you absolutely need galvanic isolation or you risk frying your laptop (or worse). We agree. The Multimeter Card design already uses isolated differential amplifiers and transformer-based power supplies on every measurement path. No shortcuts on safety.

Display output

Honestly, this is the hardest request on the list. DisplayPort Alt Mode over a USB hub topology is tricky. We're looking at it seriously, but we don't want to promise something we can't deliver well. If we can make it work, it'll probably be on a specific port rather than all of them.

240W power delivery

The FW16 with a dGPU pulls real power. We've been talking to VIA Labs about their newer hub controllers that could handle 240W EPR. Still early days, but it's on the table.

More slots

Four slots isn't enough for everybody. We're thinking about larger variants down the road. In the meantime, the Dual USB-C Expansion Card helps: it turns one slot into two USB-C 3.2 ports. And it's our furthest-along design right now.

Open source, 3D printable

PCB designs are on GitHub. Enclosure STEP and STL files are there if you want to print your own. That's not going to change.

Where Things Stand Right Now

What's Next

Hardware is unpredictable. A chip goes EOL, a layout doesn't pass DRC, a prototype comes back with a short. So treat this as "where we're headed" rather than a promise.

We're Launching on Crowd Supply

When DockFrame is ready for production, we'll launch it on Crowd Supply. We used them for our last project, WebScreen, and it was a good experience. They handle fulfillment, they're transparent about timelines, and they care about open hardware. It's the right fit for what we're building.

Want to follow along?

704 people are already in. Sign up and we'll keep you posted as things move forward.

dockframe.com

Support Us on Crowd Supply

We’re on Crowd Supply, and we need your help to bring DockFrame to more people. Your backing makes it possible to keep prices low and quality high, so everyone can enjoy the power of an open-source modular USB Hub ecosystem.

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Check out the campaign and get involved: DockFrame on Crowd Supply