Elgato’s Stream Deck is powerful enough to replace expensive broadcasting tools

Livestreaming video games is a big enough business now that companies have started making products to cater specifically to those creators, and that is leading to more bespoke tools that should lead to a higher level of polish on sites like Twitch and YouTube.

Elgato, which makes well-regarded capture cards that enable you to put video from a console onto your computer, is diving even deeper into this scene with its new $150 Stream Deck. This is a simple-looking device that features 15 programmable buttons that have an LCD screen behind each. The idea is that broadcasters can customize the Stream Deck and each of its buttons to instantly do a number of functions with Twitch or the OBS broadcasting software. For example, you can program a button to set Twitch chat to subscribers only or to play a piece of media on OBS. Essentially, it gives livestreamers a control center to do a lot of stuff that previously required a lot of extra programs running in the background or automated bots to manage.