It's no secret that I am a huge fan of Elgato. Their Thunderbolt Dock Pro and H60S+ are products I use near-daily, and the stream deck mobile app is something I try to work into everything, where possible!
Elgato has for as long as I remember marketed their products for the games streaming market, but I think they could benefit from marketing for productivity as well. The only product I can think of, which isn't marketed for streaming, is the Pro Dock. I rarely see marketing material for productivity for their other products, most notably the Stream deck, and the rest of this post will be about how some of their offerings can be used for productivity.
Stream Deck
A keyboard of varying sizes, with a programmable array of keys. From the name to the marketing material, this device is clearly aimed at streamers, but there is a few productivity uses, some of which are advertised once in a blue moon. In reality the stream deck is a productivity beast. My most used trigger, is a save and build action for visual studio code, which reduces my ⎋ → :w → ⌘⇪B to just pressing a single button on my phone. Keyboard Maestro — a popular automation app on macOS — supports the stream deck, meaning you can get a long way with the stream deck, the Automators podcast gets further into this topic. Adding support for the stream deck in your own software, is as easy as making a websockets client if you wish to.
With a recent update, the iOS gained Shortcuts support, meaning a given user can really customize their actions, by combining them with iOS Shortcut actions. Granted I haven't used this as much as I probably should, I do have a Shortcut setting the lights in the room I use for streaming and then send an Elgato action to the computer starting the stream and tweeting the link.
Thunderbolt Pro Dock
This device is not at all marketed for streamers, and is easily my favourite Elgato product! It's the first of their products I purchased, and it serves me well, making my desk static in terms of peripherals, which I only need to connect one cable to my MacBook to work. I see why it's not marketed for streamers, it's kind of difficult to spin it that way, and I seriously love it.
Capture Cards
Elgato's main money maker is possibly their capture cards, some of which sends the video feed as a webcam feed. This means that a given person can use their capture card and a high end camera to get a much better image than a capture card could ever give. This is great for not only conference calls, but having a giant viewfinder in a computer is also pretty nice for video making! If you're into NDI, then you can send a feed from OBS to any NDI receiver, and using a capture card for this allows for a lot of flexibility.
Green Screen, Key Light and Multi Mount
Their relatively cheap and easy to use green screen, paired with some key lights, makes for a versatile studio, not only for live streaming, but anything visual. I'm personally considering the green screen for my YouTube channel at least.
The multi mount is a great device, it's like a small and cheap C-stand for your desk. Initially only available for key lights customer, they are flexible and — as with anything else Elgato — super easy to use. I'm thinking of getting one to hang my lav mic on and another one for my Sony camera. This will prove useful for both my tech videos as well as when I live stream!
What do you think. Is Elgato a brand you associate with productivity, or is it streaming only?