I tried using a foot pedal to increase my productivity at work — here's what happened

[admin]

The Elgato Stream Deck Pedal is designed for streamers but I added it to my work setup and found having keyboard shortcuts a tap away to be quite useful.

I tried using a foot pedal to increase my productivity at work — here's what happened : Read more

 

[Larask]

You can try as hard as you want to try and make these sound relevant so people will buy them but there is just no way that any of the things you described are more convenient than just like hitting a key on your keyboard. Like you can literally make macros on your keyboard why would you not just do that your hands are already on your keyboard

 

[monkey needs a hug]

While I don't disagree entirely with you in that this and other reviewers might be trying to convince us we need to buy a thing, I would like to disagree about the usefulness of this device. This reviewers uses are not using this device to its fullest. [ which is the case with many products, so can't blame them for that entirely ]

If you are a power user or you need to have your hands free, then this can be worth the money. If you are a make up artist as only one example and are making tutorials then being able to use a few keys on a footboard makes sense. Basically, any use where you need to use the keyboard and have your hands free makes sense.

Another use is if you are a power user and you already use a bunch of multi-key shortcuts and you are tired if dancing around with your fingers. You can make one or more of the foot pedal buttons a modifier key.

Obviously for a streamer having your hands free to gesticulate like you are a spineless puppet as you digital zoom effect in and out with your foot pedal to make your video "entertaining" is another thing you can't do with a keyboard.

Yeah, this is by no means a mandatory item, but for those that it can be useful for, it can be useful.

That this product costs so much more than the competition is another point of contention, but heck, I have purchased thousands of dollars worth of mouses, keyboards, graphic tablets, and such over my lifetime. Paying 40 dollars more than alternatives can certainly be worth it.

 

[ClemCa]

I don't have an elgato one, but I had a cheap 3-key pedal for years now. I use it mainly when reading or watching videos, as left down and right respectively. The main thing about this is you need to find your use case for your setup. When reading or watching youtube, I often lay back on my chair, which makes reaching my keyboard or mouse impossible with my setup.
The main question as to whether you'd have any use for it is: is there any regular situation in which doing something would be awkward? If your mouse is always in reach and you have enough keys on it for all your common shortcuts, there's no need for a pedal.
An exception might be on keyboards. If you need a shortcut while gaming, then using a keyboard could be a timeloss. Or maybe you're typing often at work, but a shortcut you need often is unnecessarily breaking your workflow, when you could just move your foot and keep typing. Of course, a keyboard macro is always good, but considering the learning curve and final result, if money is not an issue I'd still consider a pedal over it. Your feet are always free, not your fingers.

 

[Doctor Wizard]

I picked up a set of Infinity pedals at a thrift store for $5. I'm a developer but was unable to do anything with it software-wise as they have the driver locked down. Shows up as an HID but can't map keystrokes, buttons, or anything to it, no detectable events. So finally I took the brute-force hardware approach and ripped out the circuit board and replaced it with an Arduino Micro which sends F18-F24 keystrokes as the pedals are pressed, AND RELEASED. That way I can map the big middle pedal-down to multimedia-play, and pedal-up to multimedia-pause. So it plays only while the pedal is held down then pauses when released. The left and right pedals down to Rewind and FFWD, and up to return to normal play speed. I now use them in all sorts of audio and video playing and editing software, super useful and huge productivity enhancer!! Alas, none of the commercial foot pedal products I have looked at including Elgato's allows you to map macros to the pedal up.