Swizerlan I guess usb 3 will be the bottleneck no matter what.
Yes.
As far as power is concerned, I use a Raspberry Pi-compatible (no back power) Powered USB hub that is capable of sourcing up to 2.4A per port. So, you can try that if the USB bus powered device need more power.
But you will be limited by the ASIAIR itself. The processor on the ASIAIR is quite limiting.
After moving from a Mac Mini M1 (which itself was a temporary stepping stone from my old MacPro to Apple Silicon) to a Mac Studio, I have since converted that Mac Mini to 12V DC operation (really easy, since the internal supply of the Mac Mini M1 is a 12V supply; a buck/boost converter is only needed to keep the supply relatively constant and noise free). Going forwards, my plan is to run INDIGO with the Mac Mini and never have to worry about lack of processing power again (or need to leave a laptop outdoors in the elements).
Its too bad the usb c cannot be used to write to a drive.
Keep in mind that "USB C" is really an electrical and mechanical specification. Depending on the product, you can implement USB 2, USB 3, Thunderbolt, HDMI, DisplayPort, etc data protocols through a "USB-C" port, in addition to Power Delivery (PD) protocol. The ZWO mini cameras, for example, only implemented USB 2 data protocol using a USB C connector.
I expect that future cameras will use a single USB-C port to include both USB 3.2 data and enough power (through PD) to support cooling with a single thin cable. I had suggested that to ZWO about a year ago, but they (Sam) were not interested. However, some other manufacturer will eventually do it to make cabling neater. Moreover, there are USB C connectors with strain relief screws, so you don't need to use tape and 3D printing like what we need to kludge today to keep the data cable from being intermittent as the camera moves over the night.
Chen
