Every once in while you run into a product that solves a problem you did not know you had.  For me, the Elgato Stream Deck is one of these products.  This item is different, useful, and increases your productivity depending on your individual workflow.  The Stream Deck is in a category all by itself and if you have not seen one of these before, check out this video for a quick overview.

 

Initial Impression

 

Screenshots

     

 

For additional information on the device see their website:  https://www.elgato.com/en/gaming/stream-deck

 

Summary

Overall I think this is a great product that will become even better after they rev the software to add more features and fix a few bugs.  The software crashed on me on numerous occasions but mainly when I was editing the settings and not while I was actually using the product.  Presently OBS and Twitch are the only out of the box programs supported and I would have loved to see support for other software such as XSplit.  As you can see from the video you can use it with any software but it is easier to setup when there is native support. Despite a few flaws, I really like this thing and I look forward to doing more with it.  I have already found that it has become a normal part of my daily routine and I am finding myself using it more and more.  It is a bit expensive but given the construction and the quality of the build, the price is probably justified.

 

Update

They recently released an update that supports the XSplit API.  Unfortunately, it requires a beta version of XSplit which was causing boot problems with my system.  I will post more on this later.