Elgato·webcam & streaming
Elgato Stream Deck MK.2
Based on 31 credible posts from Hacker News & Bluesky. 28 filtered out as bot-like or off-topic.
Medium confidenceA solid sample; expect small shifts as more owners post. How we score
Scored September 27, 2026
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Owner reviews
Overall owner mood
Most owners are happy with it: 65% of 31 reviews are positive and 10% negative. Praise centers on display and controls & input. The most common complaint is controls & input (3 owners).
What owners like
Display praised by 5 owners
“I eventually switched my effforts to an open-source third party client which had a web UI, which is now accessible to screen reader users.”
Controls & input praised by 4 owners
“I have a the product and made a dedicated button for this.”
Price & value praised by 3 owners
“MuteDeck can also integrate with hardware tools, specifically the Plenom Busylight ( which actually got a lot more reasonable price-wise from my memory ($50).”
Camera praised by 2 owners
“But for now I'm fine - I work from home, desk is in the middle of the room facing the door (so camera is aimed at me and far wall).”
What owners complain about
Controls & input raised by 3 owners
“Then sitting there confused wondering why my buttons weren't doing anything.”
Display raised by 2 owners
“I know this sounds silly, but what really breaks my flow is moving my mouse from the middle of the screen where my model is, to the top of the screen where the menus is.”
Sound raised by 2 owners
“I know this sounds silly, but what really breaks my flow is moving my mouse from the middle of the screen where my model is, to the top of the screen where the menus is.”
Camera raised by 2 owners
“I used to have awful crashes all the time, either Zoom's capture host process (caphost) would crash, necessitating completely restarting the app, or OBS would crash.”
What owners talk about
- Controls & input4 praise · 3 complain
- Display5 praise · 2 complain
- Camera2 praise · 2 complain
- Sound1 praise · 2 complain
- Price & value3 praise · 0 complain
- Build & durability1 praise · 1 complain
- Software & AI1 praise · 1 complain
Built from the reviews themselves — every quote links to the owner who wrote it.
Full text of every credible post we scored. Bot-like and off-topic comments are hidden.
[...] The idea: Capture screen, camera, mic, and system audio in one take. [...] Features: - Multi-source capture: screen, camera, mic, system audio - Standard mode (separate files per source) or Composite mode (PiP in one file) - 6 scene presets + custom scenes, switchable mid-recording with hotkeys (StreamDeck) - ProRes 422/4444, HEVC, H.264 — hardware-accelerated, up to 8K - AAC or lossless PCM, multi-channel support, real-time audio metering - LUT color grading on camera with live preview - Production slate: scene/shot/take tracking, circle takes, retake marking - Timestamped markers with notes during recording - On-device transcription (50+ languages) with SRT/VTT export - Crash recovery via fragmented MP4. Files survive unexpected stops - Stream Deck plugin + URL scheme for full external control - Course mode for structured lesson-based recording workflows - Project-based organization with reusable source templates - Composition guides, preflight checks, and countdown timer - 100% local
Rn im having a blast moving to linux, I had hardware that was not compatible bc it had windows specific softwarw -stream deck(the current software did not work as spected) -pcpanel (linux compat sucked) -avermedia lgd(no drivers for linux) On 3 weeks I had them ported(all gpl on github) and they work really well. If you know what are you doing, agents can be really focused and deliver well
I'm working on a self-hosted open source system for monitoring and alerting on stalled / crashed / overdue asynchronous workflows. I had some weird things I needed to monitor and log analysis was kind of a PITA for dealing with them so I built this instead: My favorite feature is I built a Stream Deck plugin for it so that I can monitor things from my Stream Deck XL while I'm doing other work, then if a button goes red or whatever I can just click it and it brings up the admin portal and shows me the workflow that failed. It's still kind of in the alpha state but it does work pretty well.
There are dozens of us who went through the ordeal to use MIDI controllers for stuff because you just want to touch a button and not alt-tab 4 times. [...] (part 2 is not published yet where I replace the Korg software with my own app using a Rust midi driver) But yes, mine was 55 EUR, is universally usable, and it was a fun project. There is a reason I didn't buy a stream deck and there's also a reason I did not buy a 3d printer, design a PCB and do it from scratch.
Why not a Stream Deck? I own 3 stream decks, and they are incredibly useful. [...] And the best part is that there are small screens you can customize.
I'm working on a self-hosted open source system for monitoring and alerting on stalled / crashed / overdue asynchronous workflows. I had some weird things I needed to monitor and log analysis was kind of a PITA for dealing with them so I built this instead: My favorite feature is I built a Stream Deck plugin for it so that I can monitor things from my Stream Deck XL while I'm doing other work, then if a button goes red or whatever I can just click it and it brings up the admin portal and shows me the workflow that failed. It's still kind of in the alpha state but it does work pretty well.
[...] Keyboard on left hand and Mouse on right. The keyboard shortcuts in Blender are excellent, but there are many. I know this sounds silly, but what really breaks my flow is moving my mouse from the middle of the screen where my model is, to the top of the screen where the menus is. I bought a Stream Deck which is a programmable keyboard with 32 buttons and a screen behind them. I've programmed my most common commands there, so I can just reach across with a finger and smash a button rather than move the mouse away from the center of the screen. [...]
Very true :) I had this exact issue with the Elgato StreamDeck user interface, which renders the macro buttons as one big canvas only drag-and-drop interacts with. [...] I eventually switched my effforts to an open-source third party client which had a web UI, which is now accessible to screen reader users. [...] The amount of hand-holding I've had to do has made me suggest, several times, to just give me git access as it'd be faster if I just fix it myself.
[...] I'll decompose the project into small discreet units of work and slowly build my way up, I find it makes less mistakes using that approach. [...] Then I thought it would be fun to be able to monitor the status of all my workflows as buttons on my Stream Deck XL, and Claude was able to build the plugin with almost no issues at all. [...]
I wired up a stream deck to perform long-running tasks. [...] Eg: push a button, it shows that it's working for a while, then strongly flashes when it's done (success/failure). [...]
Someone told me the other day I should use a foot pedal, and then I remembered I already had an Elgato one under my desk connected with my Stream Deck. I got it very cheap used on eBay. So, that's an option too.
I have a Stream Deck and made a dedicated button for this. So I tap the button speak and then tap it again and it pastes into wherever my cursor was at. And then I set the button right below that as the enter key so it feels mostly handsoff the keyboard.
[...] I'm probably going to stick with Home Control but I will download and pay for yours as well, mainly to show some support and possibly to switch! I do use Home Control via my Stream Deck, weirdly with Keyboard Maestro in the middle to receive the Stream Deck keypress and call the URI for Home Control, but there's a lot to like from what you've built.
[...] "We'd like to say that the teams are currently investigating this and new integrations are currently on hold while we make updates to improve reliability and performance. [...] I first came across this when trying to integrate my new Stream Deck into Spotify. [...]
[...] I used to have awful crashes all the time, either Zoom's capture host process (caphost) would crash, necessitating completely restarting the app, or OBS would crash. Now it just installs a camera extension, so yes, I believe it's all on the CMIO APIs. [...] I hate Zoom's clunky screen picker UI and never want to accidentally share plaintext secrets or PII to the attendees by choosing the wrong window or absentmindedly moving a window to a shared monitor or something, so I got around that by just using OBS as a switchboard, and never having production data on my test computers. [...] Slide decks are the only data from my presenter computer ever shared, but via a 'macOS Screen Capture' source. [...] Right now I'm working on getting an Adafruit Macropad to talk to an ESP32 over UART so I can build a wireless streamdeck that doesn't require any shitty bloated control software. [...]
This is absolutely correct, VMix is excellent software. [...] it’s also very reasonably priced, for one particular client twice a year I do a large 2 to 3 day livestream. [...] Over the years we’ve built some incredible automated graphics for displaying on large billboards at the event, as well as using the second copy to produce the livestream where we pull in five professional ptz cams (via rtsp) and 2x sdi video feeds (via a capture card). We also use the NDI app on two iPhones to add their video into the mix (using the built-in vmix scripting, when someone presses the send button in the NDI app, V-Mix notices the audio level going above zero, and switches that live video feed into program). [...] We also use companion running on a raspi5, connected to 2x stream decks, so that the entire set up can be controlled via the stream deck buttons.
[...] For my toddler, I've started the process of hooking up my TV with a Mac Mini, Broadlink RF dongle, and a Stream Deck. I'm using a python library to control the stream deck. I'm configuring the buttons to play her favorite shows with jellyfin. [...]
Hey Hacker News, TL;DR: Made a menu bar app that auto-launches or quits apps based on what USB devices you plug in or what WiFi you're connected to. [...] I love my Stream Deck. [...] But something about it drove me absolutely nuts: The Stream Deck app has to be running for the hardware to work. [...] having Stream Deck running all the time when the device is only actually plugged in maybe 30% of the time? [...] Then sitting there confused wondering why my buttons weren't doing anything. [...] What Lean Running Does Watches for triggers. [...] USB Triggers Plug something in → launch an app, run a Shortcut, execute a script Unplug it → quit an app, run a different Shortcut, whatever For my Stream Deck thing: device plugs in, app launches. [...] WiFi Triggers Connect to home network → open your personal stuff Connect to work network → launch Slack, kill your game launchers Connect to coffee shop WiFi → fire up a VPN What It Can Actually Do Launch apps Quit apps Run Shortcuts (the Apple Shortcuts app - honestly the possibilities here are kind of endless) Use Cases I've Thought About Beyond my whole Stream Deck situation: Audio interfaces - Open your DAW when your Focusrite plugs in Drawing tablets - Fire up Photoshop when your Wacom connects External drives - Launch backup software when your Time Machine drive shows up Webcams - Start OBS when your streaming setup connects Work vs Home - Different apps depending on what WiFi you're on Docking stations - Full "work mode" when you dock
[...] I decided to use RGB lit buttons, so I could change the color's depended on which game was loaded. I used an ESP-32s2 to emulate a keyboard, and accept serial messages from the host computer that changes the button colors. I also incorporated a Stream Deck in the control panel for auxiliary functions. I was able to write a node application to run the stream deck (with the help of a library) since there is no OEM software for linux. By far the most challenging part was getting a suitable signal to the CRT. [...]
I have my Pixel 3 magnetically attached to my keyboard, to the left side, next to the tab, caps lock and other keys. It displays a webpage of a grid of buttons which do things when I press them, like inject the current timestamp at the cursor position, toggle my monitors on and off, launch certain apps. Because I wanted an Elgato Stream Deck but then thought that I have this unused phone.
I use a StreamDeck with MuteDeck (which basically provides a consistent tooling for the buttons regardless of Teams/Zoom/Meet). MuteDeck can also integrate with hardware tools, specifically the Plenom Busylight ( which actually got a lot more reasonable price-wise from my memory ($50). [...] But for now I'm fine - I work from home, desk is in the middle of the room facing the door (so camera is aimed at me and far wall). If my partner walks in, she can see the camera status on my Insta 360 camera on my monitor which has a green light visible from any direction if the webcam is live.
[...] I mean, I have a Stream Deck sitting on my desk as I type this, and that's basically a large, freestanding Touch Bar. [...]
[...] (I use that one with Keyboard Maestro: if I'm in iA Writer and press F2, it opens that note (or creates it if it didn't already exist)). [...] This one dims my office lights; I use Keyboard Maestro (again) to link it to one of the buttons on my Stream Deck. [...]
I own an elgato Stream Deck (somewhere in a drawer), I love the concept of keys being a display but the keys are VERY mushy. Still a better deal and a way more versatile device than that Codex Micro pad. Now that I think about it, I think I'd enjoy using streamdeck more if it was just a USB touchscreen thing maybe with some vibration for tactile feel with the same UI.
I'm currently supporting (a couple hours a week) an exec who has mostly automated his workflow via vibe coding (the rest largely failed - not everyone can make the leap, and those that do are largely marginal) his workflow is largely a VS code window with the git commit/sync button on the left, and 2-20 codex/claude tabs in the main window on the right. [...] The venn diagram overlap of people who this would be useful for, vs people who have already vibe-coded their own macro keyboard with a streamdeck (myself included) is probably a pretty strong overlap. [...]
I set up an old Stream Deck to do the same thing. [...]
I still do have a few USB-A: Yubikey, mouse receiver, Streamdeck, USB sticks, webcam, old HDD hard drives I use for backups... [...] I even like that if I were consistently using HDMI, I could actually just put an HDMI extension card into my laptop and still not need a dongle. [...]
[...] I run a copy of my home automation software (don't get excited, it's written in Visual Basic .NET) on a NUC in my car. The user interface consists of a 16x2 LCD display attached on my dashboard which displays the GPS position and speed of the car (I log this) as well as the song and artist when the playing music track changes, and an Elgato Stream Deck which sits in the center console and allows me the ability to launch playlists, advance tracks, etc. If it has Internet (it doesn't usually, I'm cheap), it can hypothetically do some limited navigation, but I haven't tuned the behavior of that much because it's hard (illegal) to program while driving. [...]
I do use an Elgato stream deck for entering Unicode symbols, and I think what's really needed in this space is a cross between a stream deck and the Mathpad: programmable keys with LCD key caps, and some shift keys to increase the number of available symbols. Then it could support configurable symbol sets.
That is why my wife won't use the pihole on my network - things like Google map links to hotels, Amazon shopping links, even target app pictures didn't work out of the box. I have a button on my stream deck to enable/disable pihole but I totally understand that is an annoyance for others!
Right now I mount up to 7 HDDs to the Mac via SMB, have some Streamdeck / Pedal and the necessary external SSDs for fast storage connected. I will see if the SMB mounts come back OK after sleep (my laptop acts as server) but the Streamdeck and HDDs wake up randomly so overall it's easier to switch everything on and off depending on usage.
The claims, and the evidence
What the brand claims
No published claims on file for this product yet.
What owners report
“[...] The idea: Capture screen, camera, mic, and system audio in one take. [...] Features: - Multi-source capture: screen, camera, mic, system audio - Standard mode (separate files per source) or Composite mode (PiP in one file) - 6 scene presets + custom scenes, switchable mid-recording with hotkeys (StreamDeck) - ProRes 422/4444, HEVC, H.264 — hardware-accelerated, up to 8K - AAC or lossless PCM, multi-channel support, real-time audio metering - LUT color grading on camera with live preview - Production slate: scene/shot/take tracking, circle takes, retake marking - Timestamped markers with notes during recording - On-device transcription (50+ languages) with SRT/VTT export - Crash recovery via fragmented MP4. Files survive unexpected stops - Stream Deck plugin + URL scheme for full external control - Course mode for structured lesson-based recording workflows - Project-based organization with reusable source templates - Composition guides, preflight checks, and countdown timer - 100% local”
after 3 monthsView on Hacker News“Why not a Stream Deck? I own 3 stream decks, and they are incredibly useful. [...] And the best part is that there are small screens you can customize.”
“Very true :) I had this exact issue with the Elgato StreamDeck user interface, which renders the macro buttons as one big canvas only drag-and-drop interacts with. [...] I eventually switched my effforts to an open-source third party client which had a web UI, which is now accessible to screen reader users. [...] The amount of hand-holding I've had to do has made me suggest, several times, to just give me git access as it'd be faster if I just fix it myself.”
“I own an elgato Stream Deck (somewhere in a drawer), I love the concept of keys being a display but the keys are VERY mushy. Still a better deal and a way more versatile device than that Codex Micro pad. Now that I think about it, I think I'd enjoy using streamdeck more if it was just a USB touchscreen thing maybe with some vibration for tactile feel with the same UI.”
Common Elgato Stream Deck MK.2 problems
Issues at least two owners independently report.
- Sound2 mentionsView on Hacker News
“[...] Keyboard on left hand and Mouse on right. The keyboard shortcuts in Blender are excellent, but there are many. I know this sounds silly, but what really breaks my flow is moving my mouse from the middle of the screen where my model is, to the top of the screen where the menus is. I bought a Stream Deck which is a programmable keyboard with 32 buttons and a screen behind them. I've programmed my most common commands there, so I can just reach across with a finger and smash a button rather than move the mouse away from the center of the screen. [...]”
- Controls & input3 mentionsView on Hacker News
“Very true :) I had this exact issue with the Elgato StreamDeck user interface, which renders the macro buttons as one big canvas only drag-and-drop interacts with. [...] I eventually switched my effforts to an open-source third party client which had a web UI, which is now accessible to screen reader users. [...] The amount of hand-holding I've had to do has made me suggest, several times, to just give me git access as it'd be faster if I just fix it myself.”
- Camera2 mentionsView on Hacker News
“That is why my wife won't use the pihole on my network - things like Google map links to hotels, Amazon shopping links, even target app pictures didn't work out of the box. I have a button on my stream deck to enable/disable pihole but I totally understand that is an annoyance for others!”
- Display2 mentionsView on Hacker News
“[...] Keyboard on left hand and Mouse on right. The keyboard shortcuts in Blender are excellent, but there are many. I know this sounds silly, but what really breaks my flow is moving my mouse from the middle of the screen where my model is, to the top of the screen where the menus is. I bought a Stream Deck which is a programmable keyboard with 32 buttons and a screen behind them. I've programmed my most common commands there, so I can just reach across with a finger and smash a button rather than move the mouse away from the center of the screen. [...]”