Stream Deck Mini

I’ve made several customizations on the Mac to get me through the day.

I use all of them regularly, with one exception: The hotkey / menu system for controlling the zoom camera and microphone. I toggle my camera and mic really frequently, and so the hotkey / menu system (as light as it is) takes too many keystrokes and has too much friction.

Enter the Stream Deck

I looked into a few different options for having dedicated physical keys for my conferencing controls, including building or buying a custom keypad, but settled on the Stream Deck.

The Stream Deck Mini is a device that has 6 physical programmable buttons and can perform any action you choose when pressed. Each button also has custom customizable LCD screen as well.

I settled on the following buttons:

1. Zoom Camera On/Off
2. Zoom Microphone Mute/Unmute
3. A CPU meter showing the current CPU usage
4. Desk Light On/Off
5. Leave Current Zoom Meeting
6. Show Next Meeting

I use the Stream Deck constantly, especially when on a Zoom - it’s one of the best setup upgrades I’ve made.