I am not a streamer.Heck, I don't even game much anymore.But I had to give up my gaming keyboard and return to using an ergonomic keyboard to avoid repetitive stress injury. While I admit that I miss the frivolous flashing light show, what I really miss was the macro keys, which I used for trivial things like special characters.Now I have rapid access to frequently-used special characters, media controls, single-button access to my NAS, router, etc.The keys have little screens on them. The automatic images are generally descriptive enough and highly customizable, and you can also create 72 pixel squared custom images for individual keys for further customization.The only minor complaint that I have is that if you want to open an app, you have to have a ... MoreI am not a streamer.Heck, I don't even game much anymore.But I had to give up my gaming keyboard and return to using an ergonomic keyboard to avoid repetitive stress injury. While I admit that I miss the frivolous flashing light show, what I really miss was the macro keys, which I used for trivial things like special characters.Now I have rapid access to frequently-used special characters, media controls, single-button access to my NAS, router, etc.The keys have little screens on them. The automatic images are generally descriptive enough and highly customizable, and you can also create 72 pixel squared custom images for individual keys for further customization.The only minor complaint that I have is that if you want to open an app, you have to have a path. Apps installed from the Microsoft store and certain utilities built into Windows may not have a path that the user can easily get to. Thus, for Notepad and MS Paint, I had to create a batch file and and create a custom image of a screenshot of the start menu to have an icon.

I've always considered scenes to be one of the bread-and-butter functions of streaming. They allow you to have different widgets, overlays and addons running in a single instance of OBS or XSplit without having them all run at once. The issue with scenes is once you get past 3 or 4 of them, it starts to become a chore to manage them. Add on any additional functionalities such as a sound board or other things, and you can quickly run into more things than you care to click while trying to play a game or converse with your chat.Enter the Elgato Stream Deck. It gives you the capability to fully customize your streaming experience, whether scene selection, sound board sounds or many other things (honestly, I primarily use mine for scene selection). You can assign ... MoreI've always considered scenes to be one of the bread-and-butter functions of streaming. They allow you to have different widgets, overlays and addons running in a single instance of OBS or XSplit without having them all run at once. The issue with scenes is once you get past 3 or 4 of them, it starts to become a chore to manage them. Add on any additional functionalities such as a sound board or other things, and you can quickly run into more things than you care to click while trying to play a game or converse with your chat.Enter the Elgato Stream Deck. It gives you the capability to fully customize your streaming experience, whether scene selection, sound board sounds or many other things (honestly, I primarily use mine for scene selection). You can assign scenes and other functions to individual buttons on the deck, give them customized icons and use them to your heart's content.It has native support for XSplit (what I use) and has allowed me to add buttons for the 9ish scenes that I have configured so I can switch to them at the push of a button rather than trying to find them in the block of controls on the XSplit UI. This model has 15 buttons for various things (again I'm using it mostly for scenes, but there's a ton of functionality that can be added). This makes it incredibly easy to make some quick switches in the middle of gaming action so I dont need to take my eyes or my cursor off my game. Set up is very easy and as I mentioned it has native support for XSplit, so no need to get creative with macros or other things to make it work, it just 'does'.I can honestly say this has made my streaming much more enjoyable, and I would hope the viewing experience for my members a lot more fun as well, since there is less delay and fumbling between scene transitions. All in all, it's a no brainer addition to any streaming setup. I heartily recommend it for anyone looking to expand their streaming configuration functionality with ease and without having to break the bank.

On the surface I was a little on the fence about what all I could actually accomplish/use Elgato's Stream Deck but after doing a little research and trial/error I quickly realized the world was at my fingertips.Specs and all that other stuff can be found in any number of other reviews or by looking at the spec tab for the product itself. I'm going to quickly cover what I use the Stream Deck for, as in the ~1 week since receiving it, that usage has grown and morphed beyond what I even remotely thought I'd be using it for.Out of the box the plan was to use it simply as a shortcut/hot key device. Point some exe's at it, maybe some high-usage responses for work-related things, that sort of stuff. Then I discovered the online community had started doing some great ... MoreOn the surface I was a little on the fence about what all I could actually accomplish/use Elgato's Stream Deck but after doing a little research and trial/error I quickly realized the world was at my fingertips.Specs and all that other stuff can be found in any number of other reviews or by looking at the spec tab for the product itself. I'm going to quickly cover what I use the Stream Deck for, as in the ~1 week since receiving it, that usage has grown and morphed beyond what I even remotely thought I'd be using it for.Out of the box the plan was to use it simply as a shortcut/hot key device. Point some exe's at it, maybe some high-usage responses for work-related things, that sort of stuff. Then I discovered the online community had started doing some great things with the Stream Deck and started implementing those tasks.What started as a 15 key device has become a multi-subfolder (essentially unlimited number of keys when utilizing the subfolder setup) functionality hub. The only reason I could say you'd really NEED the XL is if you don't want to have to rely on the sub-folder thing as often. Having more keys on the interface at a single time could be even more of a time saver. So if you're a power-user of certain software and really want to have 31 functions (1 button is auto-dedicated to the "return to previous level" when using the subfolders) at a glance then yes, go for the XL. But you can't go wrong with ANY of the Stream Deck offerings, really whatever your budget allows.Going back to my setup; currently I have a multimedia folder. Click it and within are all the controls for start/stop, back/forward, vol up/down, etc etc etc. When I don't need to control that stuff, hit the return arrow to jump back up to the top level and I have my Spreadsheet folder. Using the same method (in this instance, hotkeys) I found a google sheets/excel keystroke shortcut list and put my most used movements into the Stream Deck. Now instead of having to not only remember what combination of keys does what, I also only have to push a single button to perform the action. BRILLIANT.Apply this same logic to ANY application; all those keystrokes? Gone...put them in the Stream Deck.For gaming I mainly play racing games, and specifically sim-racing games. Things like brake bias, wing settings, etc etc, no longer do I need to worry about saving up for a $500+ button box, I can assign those functions to the Stream Deck. Don't need to take my hands off the wheel to reach for my keyboard and hit some random set of keys, now I have an illuminated and customizable button that I can dedicate a specific graphic to in order to adjust those things.Simple things like creating a folder in Windows Explorer (something I do often at work) is now handled by a button push. You could say, "why? it's a simple two key input to accomplish!" Yes, this is true. But if you do it 100x a day and you are bouncing back and forth between mouse and keyboard to do it, being able to keep your hand on the mouse and knock out whatever you're doing all the while clicking a single button and performing another task greatly helps expedite day-to-day, mundane things.CTRL-ALT-DEL to lock your workstation when you walk away? How about nope, try a single key on the Stream Deck.Long story short; I'm only scratching the surface as to what this thing can do. And while, yes, some of these are extremely small things to be tethering to your Stream Deck, I've found that all the tasks I've pointed it at help me out one way or another. Do I find myself still doing particular things from time to time the "old fashioned way"...? Yes, but each day my muscle memory picks up the Stream Deck's presence more and more, making it a nearly essential item on my desk at home, as well as at work.Be sure to explore the online community around the Elgato Stream Deck as there are so many scripts and other uses for it being talked about and worked on all the time. Example; putting device information (CPU, GPU, temps, etc etc) on buttons to monitor vital performance metrics.Awesome device, highly recommended.