If you watch a streamer on Twitch, it’s almost certain that they might be using a minimum of one Elgato product. After years of dominating this a part of the market, Elgato is now shifting its major focus away from gaming, introducing the new Neo line while preparing a spread of AI features to enhance new and existing hardware.
Neo is a group of Elgato’s hottest products, simplified, cheaper and more compact, so you possibly can easily use them along with your laptop or iPad. “They seem more approachable, more friendly,” says Julian Fest, CEO of Elgato, in an interview with The Verge. “All industrial design is focused on making it more appealing to a less technical audience.”
The $99.99 Stream Deck Neo is the star of the show, or relatively the command center for Elgato products. It has eight LCD keys that may be paired to automate tasks corresponding to turning on the lights or joining video calls. I exploit the Stream Deck buttons to mute conversations, pause Slack notifications, and check what music is playing on Spotify. Elgato has added two capacitive buttons that permit you to switch pages for an infinite variety of customizable keys. There is also an information display between these buttons that acts as a digital clock that is all the time available.
Stream Deck Neo is sufficiently small for use on a laptop. Photo: Elgato
Neo is Elgato’s way of bringing its streaming expertise to the masses – an acknowledgment that the line between creator and skilled is becoming increasingly blurred as more people take part in meetings remotely. But it must even be admitted that establishing webcams, lights and microphones is not a simple task for most individuals.
“We want the experience to be as smooth as possible right out of the box,” says Fest. Elgato’s Neo line is designed to be plug-and-play, so you possibly can quickly and simply upgrade your setup without having to put in multiple apps and modify settings. Elgato goals to appeal to people who find themselves looking for something between the basic webcam and microphone combo and the more advanced audio and video setup it is normally known for.
Wave Neo microphone and Game Capture Neo. Photo: Tom Warren/The Verge
The offer includes key video calling equipment. The $99.99 Facecam Neo webcam supports 1080p video at 60 frames per second, has an integrated privacy shutter, and simply mounts to the top of a monitor or laptop. The $89.99 Wave Neo condenser microphone has a raised desktop stand and tap mute functionality, and may be integrated with Elgato’s more advanced Wave Link app.
If you would like higher lighting in your desk or on the go, the $89.99 Key Light Neo is a diffused light that may be paired along with your webcam. While other Key Lights from Elgato normally include stands, the Key Light Neo may be mounted on top of a laptop or monitor, so it doesn’t take up space in your desk. It has a brightness of as much as 800 lumens and there are controls on the front to regulate the brightness and color temperature.
The $119.99 Game Capture Neo is still very much rooted in Elgato’s history of products aimed toward streamers and gamers. It may be used to capture video from PlayStation, Xbox or Nintendo Switch, and likewise supports as much as 4K/60fps transmission with HDR enabled. Game Capture Neo supports capture at as much as 1080p and 60 frames per second, making it perfect for streaming on Twitch or YouTube. It is designed to work with Discord, OBS Studio and other streaming apps to Twitch, YouTube and TikTok.
All of those Neo devices can be found to order today, except the Facecam Neo webcam. Elgato says it is “continuing to refine” the ready-to-use version and expects to release the Facecam Neo in May or June.
Neo products have packaging that may be easily recycled, as an alternative of plastic. Photo: Tom Warren/The Verge
“This is the beginning of a long-term mission where we’re really trying to make more people aware that even if you don’t consider yourself a content creator, in many ways you are,” Fest says. Elgato targets people participating in online sales, video podcasts, events, product demos, community constructing and other areas where audio and visual content has been growing in recent times. “Neo, you can really bet that this trend will continue to accelerate,” Fest says.
With one exception, each product in the Neo line costs lower than $100. That’s still far more than a $20 microphone or webcam you possibly can buy on Amazon, but the Neo devices are designed to be premium just at a cheaper price.
“We have a history of launching products where everyone says, ‘This is way overpriced and I can get it cheaper elsewhere,’” Fest says. “You’ll always find cheaper options, but I think we’ve created products here that hit that sweet spot for a lot of people.”
The Key Light Neo is very compact and you possibly can wrap the USB cable around the back. Photo: Tom Warren/The Verge
The entire Neo range is available in a white finish that has been designed to mix in with white-walled spaces. The compact nature of the Neo line also makes it easier to make use of these devices in smaller spaces and even while traveling.
All Neo products also work on iPad for the first time, a transparent invitation to the emerging line of creators who create videos for TikTok and Instagram using phones or tablets. “We can now really accessorize the iPad and make it a content creation tool,” Fest says. The iPad is often touted as a creative device, but “the reality is that most people just use iPads to watch Netflix and YouTube,” Fest says.
Even the Stream Deck Neo will work on the iPad due to a new SDK that can allow app developers to send a profile to the device that can allow it to regulate their app. This works for many limitations in iOS that do not exist in Windows and macOS, nevertheless it means it’ll take a while for app developers to construct out this support.
Game Capture Neo may be used on iPad to capture gameplay. Photo: Elgato
As Elgato looks at new workflows and increased momentum, not only for gamers, it is also considering the use of artificial intelligence to make its products even smarter. Fest told me that next month Elgato will launch a new light bar with 160 LEDs which might be individually addressable. This is Elgato’s first AI solution with a feature designed to streamline color scene creation. “We created a frontend where you can type in, ‘I want a dark forest,’ and from the backend it will go to ChatGPT… which will always give us a range of RGB values that, as a user, offers three options to choose from,” Fest says.
Elgato’s new Prompter hardware may also receive some AI-based improvements. Teleprompters will soon feature automatic voice scrolling, so reading a script might be easy and you will not need to fiddle with buttons to pause the scrolling. “A few years ago, this would have been damn hard to build,” Fest says, but the availability of models in large languages has made it much easier for the 140-person team working on these products.
However, despite all the advantages of AI, use cases could eliminate the need for Elgato webcams and microphones if the future radically shifts towards AI agents handling our meetings for us. “It might be attractive to some people, but I don’t think that’s the future I want to fight for,” Fest says. “I think artificial intelligence can help us in everything we do, it can make everything easier and maybe even more fun. It can help unleash creativity and that’s where we’ll invest and try to build.”
Credit : www.theverge.com
