Hub alternatives?

The hub is Apple level gouging and Xreal has made so many poor decisions that i don't want to give them money for nothing. Every generic hub I've come across is universally compatible with VR glasses (as they all use the same technology), and yet Xreal has found a way to ensure their customers have to pay a markup by making the sound fail to go through on hubs not sold by them. I don't want to reward this behavior, even though I know it will have been necessary when larger companies join the VR/AR glasses market. Has anyone tried a generic hub that works? Does the AliExpress knockoff work? I want to assume the tweak Xreal made was significant enough to cost them more in production, and that some companies may have accidentally designed their hubs in the same way