This is just covering softwares on Linux, for windows the official tool seems to be the way to go. I don’t remember the order in which I tried the programs but I’ll list them in order of usefulness to me.

Bitfocus Companion⌗

This is the one I opted to use. Partly because it has emulators where I was able to test my button layout before my first Deck even arrived back in October.

I use this program primarily for interfacing with Home Assistant. It has allowed me to setup sensor readouts on a some buttons and control things like my lights, fans, whatever esphome device I build, as well as launching programs and games on my pc.

It started off running on the host OS till I got my Deck+ and wanted to seperate the controls so I can try other software with the Deck+ while running the XL from a debian VM. I’m just gonna say the other softwares are meh at best.

I have to use helper programs for doing certin things on my pc but it’s fine. They happily sit in the background doing their thing. One program I had to rebuild it with the help of ClaudeAI so it runs in the background without a window in the taskbar. It’s called RemoteVolume. I use ScriptLauncher for running programs at the push of a button. It’s useful at times but I still use my OS’s native app launcher most of the time anyways.

There’s VICREO Hotkey Listener but I haven’t done anything with it yet. Might be useful in my apps and games. That one will also need to be modified to stay in the background. I don’t know why such apps need to exist in the foreground. It’s a helper service, such services should be hidden.

I have connections for OBS and VSCode that I need to play with more. One for Discord that always breaks. One for Twitch and Youtube but YT also breaks, no idea why. No idea how to put either one to use.

Kenkufm would be useful for a soundboard if I started streaming my gameplay. This program has so much potential. I know it’s built for the Video Broadcasting world and it amazes me to see people using the Stream Deck XL to control some pretty expensive gear and here I am just using it for my little bit of home automation.

Which brings me to…

OpenDeck⌗

It sells itself as a opensource version of the official elgato software but it feels extremely dated. There’s no way to copy profiles from the official one to it and vice versa. There’s no templates to build from like the official one has. The plugins are basic and offer virtually no support for the Deck+ rotary knobs. Like, it has round spots for assigning buttons but no plugins I’ve installed support it. Which defeats the point of the Deck+.

The offical software supports the knobs but still suffers from the same flaw that configuring every button for whatever it’s supposed to do is a chore. Worst than the Companion software and far less useful.

StreamController⌗

Then you have this thing. I can’t say much other than it crashes when I try to do something. Just useless. Figured I’d mention it anyways for future reference.

Thoughts⌗

The Companion software is the way to go. It’d be nice if I can do more user level stuff like what the official elgato software can do with my Deck+ but for now, Companion will run both of them. I just can’t think of anything to use the Deck+ for besides a fancy volume control knob for my main audio output. Maybe I can find an affordable mixer that works with Companion to interface other audio sources.

I wouldn’t mind playing with other more fleshed out softwares like OpenDeck and the windows StreamDeck software for my Deck+ but I’ll find something eventually. I do like how the windows software has backgrounds that cover the whole button array and lcd strip. Looks better than a little squares where a button would be.

That’s it for now. To be continued…