So the Stream Deck on my desk has never streamed anything. It’s been a Stream Deck for work since Christmas, sitting next to my keyboard, and nine months in it’s the thing I hit before I’ve even opened a browser: VS Code, MATLAB, Outlook, Teams, one key that remotes into a VM, one that goes and gets a token for me. Which, that last one is the whole reason I’d buy it again.
Everybody assumes a Stream Deck is a streaming tool, cause the name says so. Mine earns its spot cause my day is a lot of typing, a lot of open this and navigate to that, and the same eight things over and over. If your day looks like that, keep reading. If it doesn’t, I’ll tell you further down who should skip it.
Links and models checked on 27 September 2026.
My desk in September 2026. The deck lives on its stand between the keyboard and the monitor, left of the mic.
What’s Hooked to What
The deck plugs into a powered USB hub, the 12 volt kind, the hub goes into the PC, and the Stream Deck software on the PC decides what each key does. Every key is a little screen, so the icon on the button is whatever you set it to. That’s the whole chain. It works.
I’ve got two pages on it. Page one is work. Page two is music. That’s it, no folders inside folders, no plugins doing anything clever.
Page One: What a Stream Deck for Work Looks Like
Eight keys, and most of them get hit every workday.
- Visual Studio Code. One tap and the editor’s open.
- MATLAB. Same deal, and it beats hunting for it in the Start menu.
- GitHub. Opens it in the browser.
- Teams and Outlook. The two I’d rather not open but have to.
- Spotify. Not the desktop app. I’m not allowed to install that one on the work machine, so the key opens the Spotify website instead.
- Jump. Launches an RDP session into a VM I have to work in.
- Copy file. The favorite. It goes and grabs a token from a key vault and drops it where my environment expects it, so I’m not doing that by hand every time I need it.
That’s eight shortcuts plus the next page key, so 9 of the 15 keys, and the other six on page one just sit there blank. I keep thinking I’ll fill them. I haven’t.
Page Two Is Just for Music
The second page is all music controls: previous, play and pause, next, volume up, volume down, and the key that flips you back to page one. Five keys doing the job of reaching for a browser tab. I like to get my jam on while I work, and not having to alt-tab to skip a song is the kind of small thing you only notice when it’s gone.
What Bugs Me
Sometimes it freezes. The keys stay lit but nothing happens when I press them. My guess is the powered hub, cause it’s the one thing between the deck and the PC, but I haven’t proven that. The fix is dumb and it works every time: open the Stream Deck software, change the page, and it wakes back up. Annoying, not a dealbreaker.
The six blank keys bug me too, but that one’s on me, not the deck.
Who Should Skip It
It’s built for streamers first, people with a pile of automated processes to trigger. You don’t need to be one. What you do need is a workday with the same handful of apps and steps in it, over and over, a lot of typing and navigating this and clicking that. If that’s your day, it’s worth having. If you don’t have repetitive workflows to hand it, skip it, cause it turns into an expensive way to open Outlook.
The One on My Desk
This is the exact one, in black. It’s also on my Shop page with the rest of what’s on the desk.
Elgato Stream Deck MK.2 (15 keys)
Nine months of every workday and two of the keys, Jump and Copy file, save me more fiddling than the other thirteen put together. Nothing on it needs a streaming setup.
- 15 customizable LCD keys, each one shows the icon you give it
- USB-C with a detachable cable and a detachable stand
- Works with Windows and Mac through the free Stream Deck software
- Trade-off: Mine freezes now and then on my powered USB hub, and the fix is opening the software and flipping the page.
Current price and availability shown on Amazon.
What I Took From It
Nine months in, the Stream Deck earns its spot for two keys, Jump and Copy file. The rest is convenience, and the music page is a treat. It freezes now and then, I flip the page, we move on. Which, for a Christmas present, that’s a pretty good run.
The rest of the desk, the keyboard and the monitor and the standing desk I built, is over on the Nerdy Stuff hub.
If you’ve got a Stream Deck doing something that isn’t streaming, tell me what’s on your keys in the comments. I’ve got six blank ones to fill.