Just when you thought the Stream Deck range had hit its limit, Elgato took things up a level, or more accurately down a level, and onto your floor. The Stream Deck Pedal is the latest addition to the brand’s ecosystem and it’s not necessarily for all streaming setups for gamers.
Design features
At just over 9 inches/24cm in diameter and 2 inches/5cm tall at its tallest point, the Stream Deck Pedal is bigger than you might think. But despite its size, the stealthy black unit will likely disappear into the furniture of most office or gaming setups.
Unsurprisingly for a brand renowned for its impressive build quality, Elgato has delivered a device that simply looks and feels good. The textured surface on top provides good grip underfoot and the detachable braided USB Type C cable is a nice touch.
While it may be all plastic on top, a solid metal plate underneath means the Stream Deck pedal is heavy, surprisingly heavy in fact, and in this case, that’s a good thing. No matter what angle I attacked the three customizable pedals, a combination of the weight and the rubberized feet on the bottom meant it never moved under my desk, even on a wooden floor. This thing is rock solid.
The pedal seamlessly integrates with Elgato’s existing Stream Deck software, offering the same simple drag-and-drop customization. Smart Profiles allow automatic switching between profiles depending on the running application, and the floating overlay serves as a reminder of the action linked to each pedal. If you’re looking for more manual control, you can even use another Stream Deck to change your Stream Deck pedal profiles on the fly.
Performance
It’s strange to say for a device with only three buttons, but there is a definite learning curve attached to the Stream Deck pedal. Unlike its desktop counterpart, there’s an element of guesswork involved when it comes to what action you trigger. The two outer pedals sit about a centimeter higher to provide tactile assistance, but unless you kept your foot on the center pedal, I often found myself hoping my foot was going down in the right place. It got better the longer I used it, but even after a few good streams, I was still relieved to see the action I actually wanted unleashed. I’m sure it will become second nature with enough use.
The conundrum of where to keep your foot is clearly something that crossed the minds of Elgato’s designers as well, as the box includes two stops to lock the mid-pedal in place and prevent it from tripping. While the ability to essentially turn the mid-pedal into a platform is a neat addition, it feels a bit wasteful to lose 33% of your functionality as a result.
If you don’t want to go so far as to completely hide the central pedal, Elgato offers four sets of springs that each offer a different level of resistance. I’ve tried replacing the middle pedal with the firmer springs, they’re labeled “2000” on the package (the others being “700”, “1000”, and “1400”), but haven’t gotten around to it yet. determined what number actually means. What I can say though is that the 2000 springs definitely needed a lot more pressure to trigger actions than the default springs (unfortunately countless).
Overall – Should You Buy It?
Unlike the original Elgato Stream Deck which I called a “must-have for streamers”, the Stream Deck pedal feels much more niche. I can’t fault the build quality or how well it works, but I struggled to find actions better suited to the pedal than my standard Stream Deck. This will vary from person to person of course, but it’s definitely not an instant buy.
Those who rely on push to talk will find it a very useful addition (especially with the recently announced official Discord integration), as will gamers who can’t afford to take their hands off the keyboard in the heat of battle. . But for the majority of streamers, the Stream Deck pedal will probably be a great piece of kit, but more of a luxury than a necessity.
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