After 3 years to trying to make it stick, I finally gave up on the Stream Deck (15 Key v1) I bought back in December 2022 while it was on a great deal.
I’m all about efficiency, I love using shortcut keys to make things faster and to remain with hands on the keyboard as possible.
There are a few different factors at play
I regularly switch between my MacBook Air (personal) and my Work windows laptop. I had the stream deck software on each with different setups
I already use a lot of keyboard shortcuts
I don’t do the same things on a regular enough basis which have enough friction where reaching for the Stream Deck would stick
The final straw was that somehow the software on the Mac, thoughts that the Stream Deck was a new device and assigned it new profiles, setting me back to square one.
I know I could probably have exported the first profile and imported it into the “new” device, but as I had some downtime over Christmas, I did some desk tidying and removed the Stream Deck, it’s sitting in a drawer thinking about what it did (or didn’t) do. I don’t know what I’ll do with it now.
Has anyone else failed to find a space in their computing life for a Stream Deck, or anything else they thought would be tailor made for them.
My CO2 monitor has been sitting unplugged on my desk for over a year now. Clearly it’s not as important as I thought to ventilate or take a walk during higher numbers.
I’ve long been tempted by a Stream Deck. Last April, I got as far as purchasing one from Amazon when it hit its rock bottom price in the UK (£108). However, being pathologically opposed to spending money that I don’t really need to, it remained unopened and I returned it.
For my purposes, I’ve been able to achieve similar functionality with the wonderful Short Run. I asked the dev when it launched if hot keys could be added – A-Z & 0-9 – and he obliged. Most things can be run via Shortcuts, i.e., KM macros, Better Touch Tool triggers, AppleScript, or combinations there of. So, I now have the Section Sign key mapped to the Short Run keyboard shortcut. When pressed, I’ve then got 36 single-key keyboard shortcuts available to activate individual Shortcuts shortcuts.
So no additional hardware using energy and taking up a port along with desk space. Does the job perfectly for me.
I still have one on the desk at home and the office, but there are only a few keys I use now. I had several programmed to our case management system (automatic filtering of tags, or example), but it used the fragile “found image” functionality, so every few months when the case management software changed a bit, everything broke. I have one use case I use all the time (seeing outstanding tasks assigned to me in any project in the case management system), so when that one breaks, I take the time to fix it. And I use buttons to jump between different DEVONthink views, and another to answer and hang up phone calls using our VOIP app (saves me from hunting down the app on screen). But that’s about it, now.
Mine is still connected to my Mac, but hardly used. It was a single-purpose device to start with. But even that functionality has been replaced by something else (and more flexible).
I use stream deck mobile. I find that with more buttons (40) I can have both the buttons I know already work and a bunch of speculative buttons with little mental load of having to choose what to ditch. Only after a few months do I need to actually decide if a button is worthwhile or not.
I also find that I tend to forget about some of the buttons every now and again, but I absolutely love it every so often when I’m really just needing a group of buttons for a few tasks and I can utilise the spot that is already set up for buttons, with nice labels.
Finally, the ability to have it with me anywhere I may wish to work does indeed make it feel more like it’s viable to actually include it in my workflow.
Been tempted by FOMO many times, but never pulled the trigger.
Like the OP, I like keyboard automation which works wherever I sit, laptop, or desk, without extra hardware, and without moving away from the keyboard.
I do think the Streamdeck excels for its original target - switching camera feeds, or other “producer/director” tasks for someone live streaming and doing everything themselves.
In that mode, especially if you are on camera and on mic trying to talk live with the Internet audience, doing technical level stuff without any cognitive overhead is definitely something I would value.
I think the only reason my v2 (15 key) remains on my desk is because I use Better Touch Tool to run it and that has allowed me to create “information buttons”. One has the date and time on it. One has my MacBook Pro battery level. Beyond that I have a couple of esoteric buttons that are useful when they’re useful, but that’s not often. It has found itself further and further back on my desk as I rarely reach for it.
I’m somewhat surprised to read of all these negative experiences with the Stream Deck. I have the 32-button version (after having initially bought the 15-button version, which I gave to my nephew) and use it dozens of times a day. I can’t imagine working without it.
For me, it was most useful for locking my mac, taking a screenshot with Snagit, and showing me my current IP addrss since I do networking stuff and it’s useful to know.
Mine, never opened. It was an impulse buy prompted by MacSparky and a drive to be more efficient. It sat around too long to be returned. Ultimately, pure software solutions were sufficient, and I did not need any more clutter on m desk.
Now it is a pretty box in my life tucked into a corner of the room.
I wrote a software program with virtual buttons to access Keyboard Maestro scripts that solution worked for me.
I don’t want to simply throw shade on MacSparky. I credit him for introducing Keyboard Maestro and Hazel into my life for which I am forever grateful.
I think it’s not so much negative experiences (although I personally do not like the first party software), so much as not finding a use case that sticks.
I also think people who are/were already used to keyboard shortcuts probably have trouble unlearning them. Plus… keyboard shortcuts work on a laptop whether it has your Stream Deck plugged in or not.
Funnily enough… the solution to this latter problem… the Touch Bar! If Apple had actually paid it any attention after the day it was first released, I think it could have been a Stream Deck replacement. I certainly used Better Touch Tool to put useful information and controls on my 13” M1 MacBook Pro.
