In all my years reviewing gear, no peripheral has shown as much potential and diversity as the Elgato Stream Deck +. For those unfamiliar with the “deck” life, the Stream Deck + is essentially an external control board which you can assign almost any function to, accessible with the touch of a button. Initially designed for streamers to control the various aspects of their live operations, these decks have quickly become popular as productivity tools to speed up common and uncommon workflows.
The Elgato Stream Deck + retails for around $340 in Australia and is an invaluable tool for multitaskers such as streamers, podcasters, and video editors. It joins the Stream Deck family, which includes the Mini, MK.2, and XL. What sets the Stream Deck + apart from it’s siblings is the introduction of tactile rotary dials and a LCD touch display. These extend the versatility of the Stream Deck+ without needing to eat up more of your precious desk space.
To that end, the Stream Deck + stands a little straighter and taller than its more laid back siblings. It’s 5.4 inches tall, 5.5 inches wide, and the support stand is about 4.3 inches deep. As you can see from the pictures, it doesn’t take much space at all. The front of the deck has two rows of four, transparent buttons which can display relevant icons or animations. I often failed to activate them because I would touch them instead of pressing them in. You actually have to really push them quite deep to actuate and I found this hindered my speed. I didn’t really like this and wish they were just straight up touch buttons.
Beneath those buttons is a new LCD display strip which shows off the corresponding functions attached to the four dials beneath it. You can also customise the background with an image of your choice though I noticed the colors were far more washed out than what I was seeing in the Stream Deck App on my monitor. Still, its suitably bright and legible. Oddly, you can’t touch it to activate controls but only swipe it to change pages. The dials are nicely tactile with a stepped resistance as you turn them and can also be pressed for additional functions.
The Stream Deck + connects to your PC or Mac via a single USB Type-C port but in order to actually use it, you’ll need to install the Stream Deck Software. From there, you can start assigning commands and plugins with an easy drag and drop in real time. No need to wait for things to update which is awesome. There are a number of in-built plugins specifically for basic system functions like opening apps, navigation, media controls and such. However, there also some streaming specific plugins that work with OBS Studio, StreamLabs and Twitch Studio.
There’s also plugins for Elgato’s other peripherals like the StreamCam, Stream Lights and Wave microphones. Elgato has an extensive plugin market where you can get a ton more plugins for different apps and functions. Third party developers and enthusiasts have put plenty of plugins with even big boys like Microsoft recently announcing plugins for its Teams app. That said, I didn’t find enough first party plugins for a number of every day apps like Chrome, Edge, MS Office and more. Undoubtedly with a bit of work, you can find some workarounds but it would be nice to have official support.
That said, the Stream Deck + offers much more than simply opening apps or adjusting volume. Both the dials and the buttons can be set up to perform multiple, even complex actions. For example, you can create a custom button that starts a stream, turns on your key lights, camera, plays an intro sequence, and unmutes your microphone. Video editors can also create a single button that exports their video with specific settings and then shares it to their social media accounts.
Additionally, the Stream Deck + can have unlimited number of pages which you can swipe through on the touch display while the dials can be stacked with multiple functions too. And if you don’t want to scroll through pages of tiles to find the one you need, you can use Smart Profiles. These let you bind a set of actions and dials to a specific app. When you open the app, the Stream Deck+ automatically changes the button configuration. For example, when you open Adobe Photoshop, all your photo editing shortcuts are available. The Stream Deck + offers limitless possibilities.
Verdict
It’s hard to argue against the value proposition of the Elgato Stream Deck+. Even if you’re not a streamer, there are plenty of productivity hacks that can save you a lot of time in your workflow. It doesn’t matter if you’re a gamer, accountant, or content creator; this device offers plenty of utility. As a piece of hardware, it’s the Swiss Army knife of desktop accessories. If I could make one improvement, it would be to replace the push buttons with touch buttons. That added layer of tactility is something we’re used to from our phones. But otherwise, this is an easy recommendation for those who need all the functionality but don’t want the massive Stream Deck XL.
