In the event you watch a Twitch streamer, it’s nearly assured that they are going to be utilizing at the least one Elgato product. After dominating this a part of the marketplace for years, Elgato is now shifting its major focus away from gaming with its new Neo line whereas additionally getting ready a bevy of AI options to enhance new and present gear.
Neo is a group of Elgato’s hottest merchandise made less complicated, extra reasonably priced, and extra compact to allow them to be used simply with a laptop computer or iPad. “They appear extra accessible, they give the impression of being extra pleasant,” says Julian Fest, basic supervisor of Elgato, in an interview with The Verge. “All the industrial design is targeted on being extra interesting to a much less technical viewers.”
The $99.99 Stream Deck Neo is the star of the present, basically the command middle for Elgato’s merchandise. It has eight LCD keys that may be paired to automate duties like turning on lights or becoming a member of video calls. I take advantage of Stream Deck buttons to mute myself on calls, pause my notifications in Slack, and see what music is enjoying on Spotify. Elgato has added two capacitive buttons to allow you to swap pages for an infinite quantity of customizable keys. There’s additionally an data show between these buttons that acts like a digital clock that’s all the time out there.
Neo is Elgato’s approach of bringing its experience in streaming to the lots — an acknowledgment that the road between creator {and professional} is more and more blurred as increasingly individuals dial into conferences remotely. But it surely’s additionally an admission that organising webcams, lights, and microphones isn’t a straightforward activity for most individuals.
“We wish the out-of-box expertise to be fairly seamless,” says Fest. Elgato’s Neo line is designed to be plug-and-play so you possibly can shortly and simply enhance your setup with out having to put in a number of apps and tweak settings. Elgato is attempting to attraction to people who find themselves searching for one thing in between a primary webcam / microphone mixture and the extra high-end audio and video setup it’s usually recognized for.
The lineup consists of key {hardware} for video calls. The $99.99 Facecam Neo webcam helps 1080p video at 60fps, consists of an built-in privateness shutter, and may simply slot onto the highest of a monitor or your laptop computer. The $89.99 Wave Neo condenser microphone has a raised desktop stand and a tap-to-mute characteristic and also will combine into Elgato’s extra superior Wave Hyperlink app.
In the event you want higher lighting at your desk or on the go, the $89.99 Key Light Neo is a subtle mild that’s designed to pair with a webcam. Whereas Elgato’s different Key Lights have usually shipped with stands, the Key Gentle Neo will be mounted to the highest of a laptop computer or a monitor so it doesn’t take up any desk area. It has as much as 800 lumens of brightness, and there are controls on the entrance to regulate the brightness and shade temperature.
The $119.99 Game Capture Neo remains to be very a lot rooted within the historical past of Elgato merchandise aimed toward streamers and avid gamers. You should utilize it to seize video from a PlayStation, Xbox, or Nintendo Swap, and it additionally consists of pass-through help of as much as 4K / 60fps with HDR enabled. Sport Seize Neo helps seize at as much as 1080p 60fps, so it’s best for Twitch or YouTube streaming. It’s designed to work out of the field with Discord, OBS Studio, and different apps for streaming to Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok.
All of those Neo gadgets can be found to order right this moment, except for the Facecam Neo webcam. Elgato says it’s making “additional positive tuning” to the out of field expertise, and expects to launch Facecam Neo in Might or June.
“It’s the beginning of a longer-term mission the place we’re actually attempting to make extra individuals conscious that even for those who don’t take into account your self a content material creator, in some ways you’re,” says Fest. Elgato is concentrating on individuals collaborating in on-line gross sales, video podcasts, occasions, product demonstrations, group constructing, and different areas the place audio and visible content material has been rising lately. “Neo actually is a guess that this pattern goes to maintain accelerating,” says Fest.
With only one exception, every product within the Neo lineup prices lower than $100. That’s nonetheless much more than a $20 microphone or webcam you may purchase on Amazon, however the Neo gadgets are designed to be premium solely at a lower cost level.
“We’ve got a historical past of launching merchandise the place all people is like, ‘That’s approach overpriced, and I can get this cheaper elsewhere,’” says Fest. “You’re all the time going to seek out cheaper choices, however I do assume we’ve constructed merchandise right here that, for lots of people, are going to hit that candy spot.”
All the Neo vary is available in a white end, which is designed to mix into rooms with white partitions. The compact nature of the Neo lineup additionally makes it simple to make use of these gadgets in smaller areas and even on the go.
All of those Neo merchandise additionally work on iPad for the primary time, a transparent invitation to an rising line of creators that make TikTok and Instagram movies with simply their telephones or tablets. “We’re capable of actually decorate an iPad now and make it a content material creation powerhouse,” says Fest. The iPad is commonly marketed as a inventive machine, however “the fact of the state of affairs is that almost all of individuals simply use their iPads to observe Netflix and YouTube,” says Fest.
Even the Stream Deck Neo will work on an iPad, because of a brand new SDK that can permit app builders to ship a profile to the machine that lets it management their app. That works across the many restrictions in iOS that don’t exist on Home windows or macOS, but it surely means it’ll take a while for app builders to construct up this help.
As Elgato appears to be like at new workflows and elevated momentum away from being seen as simply for avid gamers, it’s additionally utilizing AI to make its merchandise even smarter. Fest tells me that Elgato has a brand new Gentle Strip launching subsequent month the place the 160 LEDs are individually addressable. That is Elgato’s first AI push, with a characteristic designed to enhance the way you create a colourful scene. “We constructed a frontend the place you possibly can put in ‘I need a darkish forest,’ and on the backend, it’ll go to ChatGPT … which can all the time give us a spread of RGB values that serves you three choices as a consumer to choose from,” says Fest.
Elgato’s new Prompter hardware can also be getting some AI-powered enhancements. The teleprompter will quickly have voice-based auto-scrolling, making it simple to learn off of a script and never must fiddle with buttons to pause the scrolling. “A number of years in the past, this might have been a ache within the ass to construct,” says Fest, however the availability of huge language fashions has made this quite a bit simpler for the 140-person workforce engaged on these merchandise.
However for all the benefits of AI, the use {cases} may eradicate the necessity for Elgato’s webcams and microphones if the long run swings radically towards AI brokers that deal with our conferences for us. “To some individuals, that is likely to be interesting, however I don’t assume that’s the long run I need to combat for,” says Fest. “I feel AI can assist us in all the things we do, and it will possibly make issues simpler and possibly extra enjoyable. It might probably assist unlock creativity, and that’s the place we’ll make investments and attempt to construct.”