The Stream Deck made the main part of the key peripheral

Elgato’s first peripheral keyboard? Six years later, and the same goes with Razer, Quake, Optimus Maximus, and Stream Deck

When the very first one debuted six years ago this month, we instantly compared it to Art Lebedev’s legendary Optimus Maximus keyboard, which promised an array of swirling OLED screens under your fingertips an entire decade earlier. The company was the first to put a keyboard and a laptop on it.

Hardware has become somewhat redundant in the digital age because of the software that drives our devices. Every month, a column called Button of theMonth explores the physical parts of our phones, tablets, and controllers.

But today, we’re celebrating the simple genius of Elgato — the company that finally turned them into a viable product by making them relatively cheap, comfy, and most importantly: peripheral.

Even today, the idea feels grand: “Why would Photoshop and Quake present you with the same boring keyboard?” you can practically hear Art Lebedev’s concept images ask.

Razer didn’t sell that one, though. The final “Razer Switchblade” turned out to be far less exciting at the time: ten LCD keys and a touchscreen trackpad embedded into a regular keyboard. You can almost see a Stream Deck if you look closely — but still integrated, not yet peripheral.

The Stream Deck Mini: a simple and inexpensive model of bubble popping for hiking in the Pacific Crest Trail, or What makes it so good to drive?

I bought my first Stream Deck this week. The Stream Deck Mini is the smallest and most inexpensive model I’ve tried. Why? I watched how much fun my colleagues were having with each other.

And the keys, those keys… soft, cushy, inviting, each jeweled press like popping a piece of bubble wrap. I’m not saying it’s anything like the satisfying crunch of a mechanical switch — it’s a different joy entirely.

My friend Mitchell Clark coded a bubble popping app for me before he left for the Pacific Crest Trail. (He actually submitted it to Elgato his first day on the trail.) It works with as many buttons as you like; Tom even tested a full page of bubbles on his 32-button Stream Deck XL.

I plan to interview the head of Elgato in the near future, and I would like to know how they made these keys feel good. We already know that there is no screen underneath the keys.

Using Stream Deck Mini to Automate The Vergecast I: Switching between Audio Devices with a One Tap Switcher and a Plug-In Audio Switcher

But I bought the Stream Deck Plus because I wanted knobs rather than just buttons, so it’s no surprise that knob use cases are my favorites. I use a key light for video calling and have knobs for the volume on my computer. I use them a lot more than I have programmed. I wish there were more use cases for the knobs. We want to be able to control every light and volume for the audio in our house. I’m sure that kind of control is just a hack away. I just need to find it.

I use my Stream Deck to automate tasks I have to do as part of my job as producer of The Vergecast. I can tap one button and a message I received from one of the co-hosts turns into something I need to do in my task manager. Another button quickly opens our online studio, Riverside, to the correct location I need for a recording. My smart home is controlled by David Pierce and I can copy him as well.

I rigged up Slack status to change to BRB. If it’s lunch / meeting / nap time, I just whack that button as I walk away, and poof! I am gone. The second is a button connected to a Mac shortcut I call “Podcast Time!” (The exclamation point is very important.) When I hit that button, it turns on Do Not Disturb on my Mac, closes every app except the ones we use to record, and opens a tab with the episode’s Google Doc. It makes me happy when I mash it, and turns a million clicks into one button press.

I can’t spend all day wearing a headset, no matter how comfortable, much less my amazing wireless gaming headset that slowly drives me up the wall. I use the Stream Deck mini to swap to a set of Audioengine speakers several times a day, and with just one tap, I can do that. The audio switcher is a plug-in that allows you to switch between two audio devices with the help of icons and a Stream Deck key.

Since there is a set of fuzzy logic device match settings, it will be able to find my SteelSeries headset even if it suddenly tells Windows it is a brand-new device. I suppose I wouldn’t feel the need for this if Microsoft hadn’t buried the audio device switcher in Windows 11, but here we are, and the Stream Deck workaround works great for me.