Don’t Buy a (Physical) ElGato Stream Deck, There’s An App For That

I just saved myself a decent little chunk of money today. I was about to buy, at the cheapest, a renewed MK.1 ElGato Stream Deck off Amazon for $95.

There are other options, a 6-key Stream Deck “Mini” for under $60, an 8-key “Neo” for $100, the new model MK.2 16-key unit goes for $149, while the “No Longer Supported” MK.1 model is $115.

Now, all these links above are affiliate links for Amazon, if you’re dead set on buying a physical stream deck, then I’d appreciate if you use my links. I will earn a small commission and you won’t pay any more. I’ll also earn a commission on any “qualified” purchases for 24 hours after you click my links above. Thanks for using them.

BUT WAIT!!! I’m here to tell you NOT to buy any of the options above. I was just about to pull the trigger on the renewed model when I discovered that there’s a Stream Deck app for iOS and Android. For FREE, you get a six-button Stream Deck on your tablet or phone.

Now here’s the kicker. You’re busy looking at Stream Decks with 6-16 keys, or maybe you’re looking at the 32-key model. But you can double even that 32-key model — for a $50 one-time purchase of Stream Deck Pro, you get up to 64 keys for life! (you make the purchase in the app, for the Android version).

So this all assumes you have a tablet and aren’t already using it during your streams. Fair enough, if you’re thinking, I’ll buy the physical unit because my tablet is already engaged. But wait, maybe you don’t even have a tablet! You could try it on your phone,the six key version. But I wouldn’t blame you if you go for it and buy a physical Stream Deck. A reminder to please use my links above.

For me, I was already using my tablet during my streams to run the Streamlabs Android app. It was a partial solution to the lack of a stream deck, I could switch scenes in the Streamlabs/OBS app. I could also stop and start recording. But the Streamlabs App doesn’t offer the wide-ranging customization that a Stream Deck offers.

I will say this one negative, I will have to continue to run the StreamLabs app side by side with the Stream Deck app from ElGato. This is because the authorization fails when I try to add my StreamLabs account to the Stream Deck app. It might be something with my ad blocker, I’ll experiment and report back. I will say that I had no trouble adding my Twitch account to the Stream Deck app.

I found the Stream Deck app on the Internet somehow, I forget. I downloaded it from the Google Play store, it’s on the iOS App Store as well. I’m really happy I did, like I say above, I was just about to spend nearly $100 for a 16 key renewed Stream Deck. Now I have 64 keys for half the price, I’m ecstatic at the moment!

One thing to be aware of, the Stream Deck desktop app need to be running on your computer. It runs on both Windows and Macs, sorry no Linux. You can download it free at the ElGato website.

I’ll do an update here once I get the app setup with some custom keys. Right now it comes default with three volume controls (mute, down, up), a “show desktop” and “screenshot” key, and a “Help” key with links to Tutorials, Links, Apps and Emojis.