Elgato Stream Deck

The Elgato Stream Deck product range is a series of three low-cost commercially available LCD key panel controllers that facilitate the mapping of illuminated push-button keys to the keys of a VIP panel.

The Stream Deck controller replicates the intuitive use of a tactile hardware Intercom Panel at a lower cost and without having to use a mouse to click buttons navigate on a touchscreen.

The standard Stream Deck has 15 buttons, Stream Deck XL has 32 buttons, and Stream Deck Mini has 6.

More information is available at https://www.elegato.com/en/stream-deck.

Stream Deck Operation

The Stream Deck acts as a remote controller which subscribes over the Internet to the secure URL of the VIP Server, taking control of the keys of the virtual panel. Keep in mind that the browser-based device deploying the VIP Panel will still need to be running with access to its loudspeaker and microphone when Stream Deck is used as a controller.

The image below shows an operator using a 32 button Stream Deck XL to control a VIP-16 panel which can be seen in the bottom left portion of the computer monitor. Audio connectivity to the VIP panel is handled by a commercially available USB headset.

Configuration

Telos has developed a plug-in to aid in configuration Stream Deck. It can be downloaded from the Telos Infinity Web Portal at https://success.telosalliance.com/telos-infinity-web-portal and used in conjunction with the Elgato Stream Deck application. Product-specific documentation for the Stream Deck is detailed in the setup instructions provided by Elgato.

With the Stream Deck app installed and the VIP plug-in activated and running, you will see the following configuration screen:

Any available key on Stream Deck can be used to activate a VIP panel button, but first, a target key must be subscribed to the URL of the VIP Panel you wish to control.

For example, a VIP Panel instance installed on an AWS EC2 instance might have a URL that looks like this: https://ec2-x-xxx-xxx-xxx.deadfrog.net/vip101.

If you wish to assign the first Stream Deck key to control Key 1 of VIP Panel 101, drag the "Panel Key" icon on the Telos Infinity Stream Deck plug-in onto the Stream Deck key as shown below, then enter the URL into the 2nd text field on the plug-in.

Before pressing the "Enter" key on your keyboard to enter the address, change the URI scheme of websocket (ws://) to match the security scheme of http:

  • With secure http (https://ec2-x-xxx-xxx-xxx.deadfrog.net/vip101), use secure websocket (wss://ec2-x-xxx-xxx-xxx.deadfrog.net/vip101).

  • With insecure http (http://ec2-x-xxx-xxx-xxx.deadfrog.net/vip101), use insecure websocket (ws://ec2-x-xxx-xxx-xxx.deadfrog.net/vip101).

Note - In most cases, the URIs will use secure http (https://) and websocket secure (wss://). The use of insecure http (http://) and insecure websocket (ws://) is discouraged on internet-facing applications.

The drop-down menu labeled "Key" will now display a range of available VIP Panel buttons numbered 1 through 36. The selected button will be displayed on the Stream Deck key, including the key text and color.

Additional Key commands that can be assigned to Stream Deck include Last Call, Mic Mute, Speaker Mute, and Shift.

The Shift’ key works slightly differently on a Stream Deck compared to an Infinity Panel. Since Stream Deck is available in different sizes and with different numbers of keys, the Shift function is used to access the next available bank of panel keys.

For example, if a 6-key Stream Deck Mini is used where Keys 1-5 are mapped to panel Keys 1 - 5, the user may wish to program a ‘Shift’ function to button 6 and then choose a value within the drop-down menu of ‘5’. Pressing the Shift key will then toggle between two banks of panel keys, first 1 - 5, then 6 -10.

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