Elgato Stream Deck Pedal review: "A great bit of kit, but more of a luxury than a necessity"

Just when you thought the Stream Deck range had found its limit, Elgato has taken things up a level, or more accurately down one, and onto your floor. The Stream Deck Pedal is the latest addition to the brand’s ecosystem and it’s one that’s not necessarily for every streaming for gamers setup.

Design & features

At a little over 9in/24cm across and sitting 2in/5cm high at its tallest point, the Stream Deck Pedal is bigger than you might expect. But despite its size, the stealthy black unit will likely disappear into the furniture in most offices or gaming setups.

Unsurprisingly for a brand with a reputation for impressive build quality, Elgato has delivered a device that simply looks and feels great. The textured surface on top offers plenty of grip underfoot and the detachable, braided USB Type C cable is a nice touch.  

While it may be all plastic on top, a solid metal plate underneath means the Stream Deck Pedal is heavy, surprisingly heavy in fact, and in this case that’s a great thing. No matter what angle I attacked the three customisable pedals from, a combination of the weight and rubberised feet on the bottom meant it never moved under my desk, even on a wooden floor. This thing is rock solid. 

The Pedal integrates seamlessly with Elgato’s existing Stream Deck software, offering the same simple drag and drop customisation. Smart Profiles allow for automatic switching between profiles depending on what app is running, and the floating overlay serves as a reminder of what action is tied to each pedal. If you’re looking for more manual control, you can even use another Stream Deck to change your Stream Deck Pedal profiles on the fly.

Performance

It feels strange to say for a device with just three buttons, but there’s a definite learning curve attached to the Stream Deck Pedal. Unlike its desktop counterpart, there’s an element of guesswork involved when it comes to knowing which action you’re triggering. The two outer pedals do sit around a centimetre higher to provide some tactile assistance, but unless you keep your foot resting on the centre pedal I often found myself hoping my foot was coming down in the right place. This has improved the more I use it though, but even after a good few streams I'm still mostly just relieved to see the action I wanted actually fire off. I’m sure it’ll become second nature with enough use. 

The conundrum of where to keep your foot is clearly something that crossed the minds of Elgato’s designers too because included in the box are two stoppers to lock the centre pedal and stop it from firing. While the ability to essentially turn the middle pedal into a platform is a thoughtful addition, it does seem a little wasteful to lose 33% of your functionality as a result.

If you don’t want to go as far as totally blanking the middle pedal, Elgato offers four sets of springs that each provide a different level of resistance. I tried swapping out the middle pedal for the firmest springs, they’re labelled '2000' on the packet (the others being '700', '1000' and '1400'), but I’m yet to work out what this number actually means. What I can say though is that the 2000 springs certainly needed considerably more pressure to trigger actions than the (sadly numberless) default springs. 

Overall - Should you buy it?

Unlike the original Elgato Stream Deck which I called a 'must-have for streamers', the Stream Deck Pedal feels far more niche. I can’t fault how well it’s made or how well it works, but I had a hard time finding actions that were better suited on the Pedal than my standard Stream Deck. This will vary from person to person of course, but it’s certainly not an instant purchase.

Those relying on push to talk will find it a very helpful addition (particularly thanks to the recently announced official Discord integration), as will gamers who can’t afford to take their hands off the keyboard in the heat of battle. But for the majority of streamers, the Stream Deck Pedal will likely be a great bit of kit, but more of a luxury than a necessity. 

Round out your streaming gear search by perusing the best microphones for streaming, best webcams, and all the Razer streaming gear going too.