Question / Help [INFORMATION] Thinking of purchasing an Elgato Stream Deck? Don't.

[TickleMeOzmo]

I purchased an Elgato Stream Deck, for use with OBS.

It BARELY interacts.

* Scene Switch
* Mixer Audio Mute/Unmute
* Source Show/Hide

Aaaaaaand, that's it.

It CAN do Hotkeys. So if you want to Start/Stop streaming/recording, that's on you. To create an obscure hotkey and then assign it to the Stream Deck button.

Also, since it can do Scene Switch, Mute/Unmute, and Show/Hide. You better hope that PRIOR to streaming you have them set the same. There's no intelligent detection.

* If you mute the audio in OBS, it DOES NOT reflect this on the Stream Deck.
* EDIT: If you hide a source manually in OBS, it DOES update the icon to the "hidden" icon in Stream Deck.

It's basically a hotkey pusher. No real interactivity. Pity.

Get it only if you want "one button" access to hotkeys.

 

[Nimor TV]

I've bought the stream deck and I've been using on all my streams for the past 3 weeks and it's a marvelous piece of tech.
Slightly overpriced I grant you that but it has more then enough features to make it all worth it.
Note that I'm using a dual PC setup and use only one mouse and keyboard for both computers, I use a program called synergy in order to control both PC's with one pair of peripherals, makes it feel like all monitors are conected to the same PC.

BUT it's useless as long as I have my games in fullscreen wich is mandatory due to the capture card.
This is where the stream deck comes in. It gives me total control over OBS and most of my computer, I've assigned hotkeys to start up OBS, tipeestream program all other things I need running in the background for my stream. It takes literally seconds to start up the stream after I boot up the streaming computer. And makes my life ALLOT more easy and am able to focus on my entertainment and not how to manage the stream for it to look more fluid/professional.

I can also confirm that you ARE able to reflect the state of a source withing a scene or if the mic is muted or not for example. (check the picture below,).

I've assigned custom images for every button (you can notice my webcam is deactivated and my Record scene is selected) and made it my own. If you haven't managed to figure the software out that's on you ;).
The best part of it is the ability to control a custom generated scene on tipeestream. Wich basically means I can call on gifs/sounds/videos with the push of a button to be displayed on stream. Adds some extra interaction and fun.

So it's not just "one button" for hotkeys.

 

[OGLordBlight]

I bought one on Black Friday and thought the same but have found it to bee really useful with OBS. The only thing I'm desperately missing is the ability to change profiles from it. I'm sure I'll find more missing as I dig in but the hotkeys cover a lot.

 

[Nathan Kellert]

This is for my Hackintosh maniacs out there and also those that use Bootcamp to run Windows on a Mac to play games. Very niche group of people. The profiles are not stored on the deck itself. So if you set this up on one OS, everything resets when you move to the other and fire up. At least for the first time. Kind of annoying as it can take some time to really set this up.

Great news if you happen to be a programmer like me. There are apis in most languages that make it easy to do some SICK S#$t with this. I currently have a few of my buttons dedicated to changing my Phillips Hue lighting. Thinking about buying a second stream deck and basically using it just for that purpose on a 2nd compute. Another niche group but it may help someone.

Edit. That just made me realize. I might jump on windows and see if I get a script together and some instructions that enables stream deck to start start/stop for recording and streaming if OBS allows ActionScript(macOS) or VBScript(Windows) .