"Thing" of the Week: Jan 10-16

Starting today is a weekly series of a "thing" I like that I use in some way for my leatherwork, shop, or stream. This may be a product, a website, a book, a technique, or anything else that caught my attention and wanted to share as others may find it useful.

The Elgato StreamDeck XL!

I actually got this a week ago, but took the past week to really familiarize myself with ways to use it to my best advantage!

One of my 2021 goals is to ramp up streaming my leatherwork. I was using a Logitech G13 gamepad (which I use for my gaming) to be able to control aspects of my stream from my workbench, but...it just wasn't quite right. Even though I could hotkey certain functions, such as which scene to be on, muting my mic, or skipping a song on the playlist, I had to keep a cheatsheet beside me in order to do so.

I'd been looking at the StreamDeck for a while now, and after Christmas I saw they were back in stock. Between my Amazon points and a gift card from work, I treated myself to a late Christmas gift.

And now I wonder why I didn't get one when I first started getting interested in streaming!

The StreamDeck makes it really easy to not only control my stream, even at my bench, but I've seen how people have set theirs up to also help with video editing.

So while it's not directly connected to leatherwork in general, if you're a crafter and are interested in streaming while you work, I highly recommend it.

I know this might sound like a product pitch, but I am not sponsored by Elgato in any way...I'm just super excited about the product and wanted to share!