Elgato Stream Deck

Do you have far too many scenes in OBS or SLOBS?
Do you want to take part in your mini-games in chat or have far to many emotes you want to spam but don't want to ALT + Tab to use them?
Do you want to bring your YouTube or Twitch stream to the next level?

Then look no further, because the Elgato Stream Deck is the tool for you!

The stream deck has 15 buttons which is more than enough for all your scenes, plus it has a folder system so you can push one button, and suddently have access to 14 other buttons, and you can have a folder in that folder for 14 more buttons on top of those! Endless possibilites!

An example of the buttons I use: I have 8 scenes in OBS, hotkeys to mute and deafen myself in Discord*, OBS mute, and then 3 folder systems:
-One to list 13 different sound bites using the build in soundboard
-One for emotes
-And one for chat messages like my latest highlights vid and YouYube links etc.

* There is no integration into Discord just yet, which is a little annoying as I have to assign mute in Discord as * for example, then map the Stream Deck key as * - so for now I still actually use my Keyboard.

Pros:
-Saves me having to use hotkeys on my keyboard, so no accidental presses
-Small and fits under my screen
-Sleek black case design (though some may find this a con depending on their 'theme'
-Updated fairly regularly with new integrations - Currently has OBS and SLOBS, a soundboard, Twitch, and Twitter, plus other small abilities - too many to name.
-You can assign custom images to the small LED screens for easy readability

Cons:
-No Discord integration
-Case colour if that bothers you
-No ability to manually select the audio source output so you are forced to use Windows 10's garbage device preferences menu which doesn't work half the time. This is annoying if you use Voicemeter Banana or similar.
-The Twitter integration can be annoying if you try to use emojis as they don't post correctly 100% of the time.
--The ¤150 price tag is a little steep

Overall, I'm incredibly happy with the purchase, though as I said ¤150 may be a little steep to be honest, but overall, I feel my stream quality has improved vastly due to the ease of this tiny little black box. I use it constantly and couldn't be happier. 10 out of 10.

The difficult thing about this Unit is how many recent reviews are already outdated.
They have since fixed many issues and added a lot of new features from criticism.

I actually use mine as a button box for simulator video games, and have been having great fun the past few weeks creating custom icons.

While it may be sold as a "stream deck" focusing on people streaming video game footage (with built in features for streaming services and screen recording services), you can completely ignore this and map key presses and combinations to a specific key on the stream deck. Then give it its own icon for ease of use.

Where this differed from other much cheaper button boxes / Bluetooth number pads (which I have a few with custom hand made stickers on the keys) is how you can have many different profiles, layouts, folders etc. in a single device.

I want to play train simulator, I have a folder for that. I have a sub folder for generic controls, another sub folder for specific locomotives, and sub folders within that.

Only Con is it can be a bit clunky to get used to the software.

The buttons can be programmed as key commands (cmd+v) or key macros (series of commands), but they cannot act on their own, so MIDI functions will be unavailable.

There's also no feedback, so if you have a two-state key (on/off), and you retrigger it with another keyboard not the Elgato, the button will stay in the wrong position.

The developers keep adding functions so it might gain MIDI support in the future.

The brightness is good and screens behind buttons are nice, the feel of the keyboard is nice and pushy. Great for custom shortcuts and transport.

Software works very well and you can have profiles per app, meaning different short-cuts sets for each app you use, and a global profile when no app is used (useful as an app launcher for example).

The web-based button designer is meh and it's gaming targeted, so if you want any real custom buttons that look good prepare to do some graphic work.