 If you are new to Stream Deck, maybe you've heard about Stream Deck and want to know what all the fuss is about then this introductory video is for you Hello, and welcome to Take One Tech. My name's Alec and in this video it's really going to serve as the first in a series of videos I'm making which is really a total guide to Stream Deck from beginner all the way through to advanced and what I thought I'd do is for those that are unaware just Have this initial video to give you an introduction to Stream Deck exactly what it does Or in broad terms what it does the different models that are available and so on so that you get more of an idea of what we're talking about Then in the next video in the series I'll go into some setup steps that you can take with your Stream Deck and how to actually start using it for your Productivity in your daily workflow and then we'll move on to other videos tackling slightly more advanced options all the way through to sort of power user Uses for Stream Deck where you're linking into Things such as keyboard maestro and so on to run macros and all kinds of other advanced things on your Mac But I don't want to scare you off at the moment This is at the end of the day the very first step So let me go straight on into showing you the Stream Deck and exactly what it is So if I come into my little top-down shot the Stream Deck is a device which connects to your computer over USB and It's basically a series of buttons and if I just pull my keyboard into the shot You can see how big it is compared to a keyboard So the keys themselves the buttons on the Stream Deck are basically around about the same size Maybe slightly bigger than a standard key on a keyboard But then they're slightly further spaced apart. It actually sits on your desk. It's slightly raised So it's a bit thicker than well quite a bit thicker actually than the standard keyboard or the Apple keyboard And then it also comes Reaching out for it. It comes with this sort of riser as well So and it just clips on with magnets so that when it sits on the desk You can have it so that it sits in a more sort of slightly elevated position so that you can see the buttons more clearly and Unpress them, but I'll take it off the stand just for the moment for the purposes of this demonstration Now you'll notice that all of these buttons have quite pretty little pictures on them Well the amazing thing Or the thing that amazed me about it is that all of these buttons in themselves each one is an individual screen And if I just press this button, I can go to a whole different set of keys And they're all of the buttons change again And I could go into a different set of buttons and so on and you can see that these buttons are all changing the little icons on them and actually changing the Actions that you can do with these buttons based on the context that you're in or the profile that you're in But I'm getting a little bit ahead here. So what does Stream Deck actually do? Well, basically it is a control device for your computer You can use it to trigger things that you would normally do with keyboard shortcuts So for example, you could create a little copy and paste button Which would mimic the keystroke of control command C or command V to copy and paste and anything that you can do with keystrokes on your Mac or PC then you can mimic that with Stream Deck But you can also do some more advanced things. So there are applications that have built-in controls into Stream Deck that have actually Developed the buttons and the commands so you can have custom commands specific to applications But we'll get into that and as I said in the little intro you can also link this into macro So basically anything you can do with macros on your computer. You could do with a single push of a button So why would you want something like this over keyboard shortcuts when we're all used to pressing command C for copy and paste and so on? Well, it depends what you're actually doing on your computer for me If I am doing something where I've got my hands on the keyboard Then keyboard shortcuts are still the thing that I use because I've got that muscle memory built in to just reach across and do them But what if you're doing something on your mouse where you want to press? I don't know command P or something like that and you don't want to be uh, you can't reach across to From the position that you're in sometimes Depending on what workflow you're in it is actually easier to just have your mouse And your stream deck and be able to control everything from there So that's a very brief introduction into what it is But let me tell you a little bit about the models that are available because there are actually three models available This one that I have at the moment is the xl version which has 32 keys and is the biggest version that you can get at the moment I'm waiting for something bigger because I find that you can never have too many keys on a stream deck If I just Organize my window for you. I can show you. Uh, in fact, this is a good example I'm actually using this to control my ecam live. So here I have my different views I've got my top down view active at the moment If I want to flick over to share my desktop I just press this button and then that is going to switch over to my desktop view So that is how I'm using the stream deck to control my ecam live Which is the software I use to make all of these videos That's perhaps a good segue to say if you are interested in making videos And making youtube videos or for live streaming or producing content for video production Be it making course material or whatever it might be then I can highly recommend ecam live It's a great piece of software. It's mac only But it is a really good sort of live production environment If you've heard of something called obs open broadcast software Then it's similar to that in that it achieves the same goal However, personally, I find it a lot more user friendly and it's a really solid piece of software that's not open source It's developed by real developers who are Striving to make it better and better every day and Given that it is now the second of july 2021 for the whole month of july You can actually get 30 off the subscription for ecam live So just go over to take one tech dot i o slash ecam And you can get a free trial there and then if you sign up after that then you'll get the 30 discount That's only in the month of july and I can highly recommend it As I say, I'm this what I use to make all of these videos But I digress let me get back to the stream deck for a moment The stream deck. So this is the excel version and at the moment in If the retail price is 250 dollars the original version is the 15 key. So the stream deck That is 125 dollars at the moment And there is also a little baby stream deck for 80 dollars and that's just got six keys The differentiating factors between them the 32 key has this sort of magnetic solid stand that I showed you And the six key also has a similar stand as well The 15 key the original version Has a stand Whoops a daisy. I've gone off the wrong to a different picture. There we go the 16 version wherever it's gone Uh clicking around It's not coming up now one second There we go it was having to think about that for a moment there. In fact, it's just gone off it again Not sure quite what's happened there. So there we go. This is the uh the original version and it's on this I would say slightly more flimsy stand It is adjustable though But I just feel that having felt them both that the 32 key is certainly a more solid I'm sure at some point they'll update this one to have a more rugged stand on it as well another differentiating factor between the the three models the 32 key actually has a detachable USB cable and it's got usb c that plugs into the stream deck And on the other end is a usb 3 Plug so that is detachable though and it's a really actually it's really nice sort of braided braided cable Um now What I would recommend is if you are considering getting a stream deck Personally, I don't think that it's worth Considering the six key one if you don't have the budget to go to one of the uh larger models That's totally understandable because they're certainly not inexpensive. Um I would recommend trying out the mobile version because the mobile version of the uh stream deck app actually has 15 keys and you can run it on a mobile and I don't know if you like me and got sort of old mobile phones lying around But I actually run it on an old iPhone 5 se or sx, whichever it was. I can't remember no it's that long ago But it runs just fine on this and I actually just use this I've got a little stand and I can use this in addition to my other one when I do need those few extra buttons And that is a free trial of the app. I did a whole video about the mobile app So I'll leave a link to that in the top corner and in the description as well And yeah, it's a great way to just sort of try out stream deck and figure it out if you need it and I think that a lot of people get the smaller version and then When they're thinking that they have a use case for it and then when they actually get the device They realize how many more uses it's got and they just wish they had those few extra buttons So certainly my recommendation would be either the 15 or the 32 Or if not then the mobile app because yes, I think the mobile app is three dollars a month Something like that. So you could have several years worth of usage of that app for the same price as the sixth key And yet you'd still be getting the 15 keys on the mobile You can't really beat the sort of tactile feel though of the actual device So, uh, yeah, you might find yourself quickly as I did. I got the mobile app and I tried it for Literally a day or two days And then I went straight ahead and bought the other version because I could see the the use The use cases that I could have for it So those are the different models available Now what I'll do is I'll give you a little introduction to how the software works To set it all up and then in terms of actually going through the process of setting it up I'll leave that for the next video, which I'll queue up next in the in this playlist So this will be part of the stream deck playlist and I'll go in and order it all nicely so that Anybody joining the playlist can skip forwards and backwards and progress through all the videos So let me just move this out of the way and we should come into my stream deck profile Now in fact, if I just switch over to a slightly different view Then what we can see Is here we go. I've got the stream deck here. Let me just see if I can maybe zoom in a little bit one second Right. This is the way to zoom in. I'll just lift it higher I'm actually maximum got maximum zoom on there So what I'm hoping that you can see is that what is on the screen above Is what is on my as you can see on the the app And what is on my screen above is actually mimicking exactly what is on my stream deck So this is the application that you use to set up all of these buttons to set up all the icons And then it's what you use to program all of the actions and things like that So, uh, let me just just so that you can understand what you're looking at I'll come back into my actual application So this is the stream deck app When you download it what you'll find is it will sit in your menu bar So it will just sit up there if you're on a mac if you're on a pc I believe it is a standalone application. I've never actually used it on a pc. I'm a mac user. So I'm sorry. I can't give you some fuller details on the installation process or anything like that with that because as I say I only use max However, I do believe that the application looks pretty much the same and the the functionality that you can do with it is the The same is just a difference in the way you install it and obviously where it sits. So it doesn't you don't obviously don't have a menu bar So one thing that it will ask you to do during installation on a mac is it will prompt you and it will open up the system preferences and the security and privacy section And there'll be a part in here that you're going to need to grant access to which I believe is One second input monitoring And down here somewhere we should have Is it input monitoring he says it is one of these there we go if I just unclick that To unlock it as I say you'll be prompted to do all this But I just don't want you to feel that it's taking you by surprise And you're not sure what it's asking you to do when it's asking you to go into your security and privacy settings But it's asking for full disk access and that is to be able to control different things on your Your mac so somewhere in here it has popped in a stream deck So this this may be already in there once you go through the installation process but you'll just need to tick that to make sure it's got access And uh, maybe even it might be in here. I think as well But as I say when you go through the process there, it is yeah files and folders So when you go through the installation process, it will prompt you to open these things and just check them So just to let you know that that is totally normal and to be expected So I'm not going to go into programming all these buttons in this video I'm just showing you the interface and how that this maps to what is on the screen What I want to do here is I want to just briefly touch on Part of the installation and things that you may want to do or if you've already got a stream deck and you Maybe haven't used it for a while and you're just sort of getting back into it Then just come over to this little cog wheel at the top And what you'll see in here if it's opened up on my other monitor That'll be helpful. So here in the general settings. We've got a few things So first of all you want to just come to this software version and just click check for updates if you see The that it's got less than a five before it. You definitely want to check for updates because the latest software version as of July the second 2021 is version five So just click on that check for updates and then it would just quickly do a check to see if you've got the latest version The software version five was a major update from the previous release And it was only released I think two weeks ago or something like that I did actually do a video on the day of release about the version five Update and what the new features were so if you are if you have been using stream deck Then you may want to check that out. I'll have to leave a link in the top and in the description as well But yeah, just make sure you've done that firmware is sort of like the Uh, the programming that controls the device itself actually stored on the device Now at the moment there's just as for firmware version here But sometimes if you the firmware does need to be updated, there'll be a little button here that says update firmware So do make sure that you check that and sort of check here periodically as well to see if your firmware does need to be updated Sometimes with software updates the firmware will need to be updated as well just to run the same To be able to run the software. So just bear that in mind Here we've got a device name Where you can change the name of your device. So at the moment I've just left it as it is stream deck excel I'm thinking about getting a second one. So I might have stream deck excel one and two But there you go. You can also program it to go to sleep In terms of switch off all the buttons I personally don't do that But that you can actually assign that to a button on stream deck as well But we'll come to that Screen saver so you can have it so that there is a screen saver that runs on the across the buttons as well So you don't have them sitting static with the same image. You get obviously the same issue with Screen burning on these buttons as you might do with the monitor. Although these days with modern screens I don't think it's as big as an issue as it used to be with the old Old style monitors, but anyway You also have the option to change the brightness of the buttons If I just flip back into my top-down mode, then you can see that I'm changing the brightness I actually normally when I'm using it normally I would have it more like maximum brightness But for the purposes of this video I think the buttons do show up slightly better when I've turned the brightness down But they are a little bit dim for me on that setting. So I tend to just have them on maximum brightness So that is the sort of general settings Next we want to go to the Account section this you can basically skip this potentially when you're first setting it up Bear in mind that a stream deck the clue is in the title Was originally designed for and by live streamers And so it was for doing similar sorts of things that I'm doing really switching between different scenes and things like that Different actions when you're live streaming But it's used for far more than just that these days However, this is where you would link it to your YouTube account, maybe your twitch account your stream labs, which is another stream streaming related service And your twitter account you don't have to do that to use it with any of those services But as you'll see in another video where I talk about some of the the plugins You can get plugins for youtube and twitch and so on that you can trigger different actions So that is why you would need those to be logged in there. But when you first set it up, it's not not necessary The next section is profiles now I'll I'll come on to that In a little while in probably another video because this is where you can set up these different screens Depending on the use cases. So where you saw me show you before If I come back to my top down shot There we go. Get the right shot Where this this sort of home screen if you like this first one or this one This home screen is one profile And then I have a profile for when I'm recording and it has a different set of Buttons and then I have profiles for different work related tasks and things like that So just to show you exactly what these buttons are Or rather give you a an overview of how I'm using it if I can get back to my screen sharing Let me move this one out of the way So basically if I come to my home screen Along the top, I've got this one puts my computer to sleep Which is things off that need to be shut down and so on This one toggles my Headphones between either my headphones or my sort of speakers that I have that are part of my monitor So I can click that button and it will switch between the two switch the output of my computer between the two I can mute the computer. I can volume up and down This one switches my keyboard and mouse control over to my Phone or my ipad And then this one I use these ones to switch back and forwards between spaces Again, you can do this by the default I think is command left and right arrow if you if you use spaces on a mac to switch between them But as I say, I just have this because I I'm often flicking between different things So I just have them as little arrows there. The next row is basically these are all Think of them as sort of like mind sets So these are all the things that I use for my recording For my live streaming for this channel or for zoom calls that I have related to this channel This one is for everything to do with my podcast when I'm recording my podcast And then these four here are for four different companies I'm involved in and so they are just all the tools and things that I need relating to those This next row the way I have it set up. These are all related to specific applications So I've got this is actually a desktop calculator. I did a A video about that which I'll link to how you can make a little desktop calculator out of it But then these other ones are actually applications or are actually applications I'll try that for a third time our actions relating to specific applications So for example, my omni focus here has got all of the keys that I use with with omni focus And so on for different applications and then down here at the bottom are just some little things for like emojis to save me going to the emoji picker and this one for Commonly used files and folders on my computer a link to that system preferences and this one for dictation So that is basically my home He says trying to think for the word My home profile. I had a complete mind blank there for a moment That's my home profile and each of those are the ones that I've just shown you is a another profile So as I say, I'm going to go into how to set all this up But this is where you can see all of those profiles in the settings So that is a very brief introduction to stream deck and what it is I've shown you the hardware I've shown you the different versions of the hardware that you can get And I've given you a bit of an insight into the way that I'm using it So I didn't want to do a massive longer video of lasting for Hours all about setting up the stream deck. So that's why I've split it into different Different subsections as I've done here so What I'll do is I'll Upload the other videos and then those will all feature in a playlist Which will lead on to the next step where I'll talk about Basically how you can add these actions in and in fact just to give you a little sneak peek just in case you can't wait for the next video all of these Sections down the right hand side. It would help if I actually highlighted the screen rather than my preview window This is where we can add on different actions. So we can create A little keystrokes and things like that or we can add links to Applications and things and we can do all of that in these sections But I'll save that for the next video if you found this brief introduction video useful Then please don't forget to go and like and subscribe to the channel It really does help the channel to reach a wider audience And I'm trying to make all of the videos that I make as helpful as possible And share as much knowledge as I possibly can and also share my mistakes Because I often think we learn a lot from our mistakes and learn more from our mistakes probably than the things we're doing Right, so you can learn from my mistakes because I've certainly made a few I made a few in just this video alone So until the next video don't go anywhere because there are more videos coming up next on screen And I'll leave a link to the stream deck playlist at the bottom right there So that was where you'll find all of the stream deck related material Have a great day