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VPNs for ad-blocking Speaking of controls, you’re working with eight generously sized LCD buttons that really don’t require much of a push to activate. Below those buttons sits the touch strip, which accepts either touch or swipe inputs. And at the bottom of the Stream Deck Plus are four dials, which have infinite left/right scroll and can be clicked in for further functionality. I was miffed at first that the Stream Deck Plus didn’t have any default button or dial inputs, so all it shows when first plugged in is the Elgato brand name in the touch strip. This means newbies and confident content creators alike are dealing with a blank slate. Thankfully, the downloadable Elgato Stream Deck software is incredibly intuitive, though the lengthy input list starts with more complex multi-action commands. Take a breath and scroll down to check out the options, and it soon becomes clear how powerful this tool is. I’d advise starting out with basic commands like those found under the ‘System’ submenu. In a matter of minutes, I was able to easily populate the eight buttons with shortcuts to my most-used software. Switching from the ‘Keys’ to ‘Dials’ tab was an equally fast process for assigning functions to the four dials. So I did things differently with the Elgato Stream Deck Plus. Instead of streaming, I used it as a dedicated macro peripheral. One of the not-immediately-obvious perks of any stream deck is they’re as much built for video editors as they are for streamers. Instead of navigating menus or memorising masses of keyboard shortcuts, it’s much easier to tap a brightly lit shortcut on a dedicated peripheral. It might be an unnecessary cost for most, but the Elgato Stream Deck Plus is an attractive productivity tool. For instance, when I start Windows 11 each day, I have a ritual of opening certain apps and checking for updates. Now the Stream Deck Plus does that for me with the tap of a button instead of multiple keyboard inputs and mouse clicks. So far, so good. Hit the plus button in the Stream Deck Plus software to add extra pages. Initially, I thought that meant I had to dedicate a button on the first page to ‘next page’ functionality, and two buttons on subsequent pages for ‘next page’ and ‘previous page’. Mercifully, the aptly named touch strip lets you swipe left or right to quickly shift between pages, freeing up all eight face buttons for dedicated functions per page. What you’re left with, then, is highly customisable control set of dedicated macro keys. The eight physical buttons are well lit, easily pressed and spaced out to avoid accidental taps. The dials also act as buttons, which makes me wish that Elgato let you add the full list of Keys functionality to dial presses within the Stream Deck software. Because it has fewer options, the Stream Deck buttons are larger and, therefore, easier for large digits like mine to press. I also like that the buttons weren’t separated by a thin line of hard plastic and the extra space between them meant I never accidentally pressed the wrong Stream Deck button. The big edge for me, though, is how easy the Stream Deck is to program with basic functions compared to the intimidating Loupedeck software used in the Stream Controller. For everyone else, though, the versatility of the Stream Deck Plus means it’s a great (albeit optional) peripheral for a faster way to do things. As an efficiency-hunting small business owner, that’s important to me, and the easy-to-use software makes basic setup a breeze while simultaneously encouraging deeper tinkering to unlock the full potential of the Stream Deck Plus. This means a stream deck should be plug and play. We then evaluate a stream deck on what default functions it has included. Ideally, we want a stream deck that makes first-time streaming simple. Digging beneath the surface, we look into how the companion software works. We like a stream deck that makes it simple to reconfigure functions without being overwhelming. Price is also evaluated in the context of close competitors, and then we run test streams or other practical tests to see how practical and easy-to-use a stream deck truly is.
