Elgato Stream Deck

[Justin 262]

56 minutes ago, AJ Stinger said:

Could you share a photo of what your current hotkey pad/setup looks like so I can compare & tell you what I think, @Justin?

Here they are, but it's not fully relevant to the question. The point is, if someone is extremely fast at executing using their keyboard hotkeys, I'm just not so sure that the Stream Deck will be faster. My question is (like I stated above), that if you're supposed to be able to execute trades in fractions of seconds without taking your eyes off the trade window, what is the point in having a Stream Deck with images on the keys?

[Jason H. 53]

On 10/19/2019 at 2:44 PM, Justin said:

Can someone speak to it's effectiveness over just memorizing your hotkeys on your keyboard? Everything I need to do (buy, short, sell, cover, partial, % buys, % sells, etc) are all hotkeys under my left hand. It's always resting and ready to go and I don't ever need to look. Now I'm sure you can memorize the positions on the Stream Deck as well, but then doesn't that negate the purpose of having the designed keys? I feel like it would be ever so slightly slower than using keyboard hotkeys.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to crap all over it, I want an excuse to buy this thing!  I just feel like I'd use it for pulling up websites, changing windows, even changing certain settings within DAS, but never to actually trade with. Help me out!

My full time job is as a User Experience designer. I study users to understand their needs, mental models, and design software that "fits" their brains. One of the key measurements I utilize to evaluate a design is cognitive load. Put simply, cognitive load is how much "brain effort" it takes to learn and understand something.

Trading is a very high cognitive load activity. Learning to trade even more so. When I set out to learn trading I immediately looked for ways to eliminate as much "extra" thinking as possible. Hence the streamdeck. Memorizing hot-keys takes effort, and while I'm trying to juggle chart signals, make planning and position-size decisions, and execute good risk management I don't also want to be trying to remember which hot key I set to buy 500 shares. By using the stream deck I don't have to remember, because my hot keys are visual, right in front of my face. 

Next to my membership here, I'd say the Stream Deck is the best investment I've made in my trading. 

[KyleK29 258]

On 10/19/2019 at 3:48 PM, Justin said:

Here they are, but it's not fully relevant to the question. The point is, if someone is extremely fast at executing using their keyboard hotkeys, I'm just not so sure that the Stream Deck will be faster. My question is (like I stated above), that if you're supposed to be able to execute trades in fractions of seconds without taking your eyes off the trade window, what is the point in having a Stream Deck with images on the keys?

 

I know my Streamdeck layout by heart and can trade without looking at it, but it comes down to personal preference. Andrew uses hotkeys. I like being able to have a visual fallback and to have a ton of hotkey combinations for various things, without having to memorize it. It has cut down my hotkey "errors" that I used to get. I probably have around 100 different DAS hotkeys, trying to memorize that would be a nightmare.

I'd say StreamDeck has an advantage when it comes to traveling if you don't trade on the same keyboard, as it's smaller and easier to travel with, thus allowing you to keep the feedback exactly the same no-matter where you are (e.g. switching from desktop keyboard to laptop keyboard can be like relearning the hotkeys).

Edited October 21, 2019 by KyleK29

[Justin 262]

First - Kyle your point about traveling is great and is convincing enough for me to buy one.

Jason, as a former UX Designer myself (I did UX for an app company for 6 years and then a couple with a fashion startup in SF) I 100% get this logic. But it also kinda proves my point - as the hotkeys no longer have any substantial cognitive load (it's muscle memory at this point) a Stream Deck wont make me faster. And like Kyle said, you get to the point where you memorize the layout by heart anyway, and now you're in the same position.

That being said... Still gonna buy one come Black Friday  It may not make non-new traders faster, but it sure looks awesome and will have some utility outside of placing live trades.

[BBT Member 001 27]

I bought one of those and returned it, it was kind of cool but for a scalper, nothing beats the keyboard. Anyone had a similar experience?

[jero20 0]

On 5/30/2019 at 10:39 AM, KyleK29 said:

@RyanP

Got your message in my email but the post isn't here, you may have deleted it. But to answer your question for all, I found creating individual price icons a tad cumbersome and just use the StreamDeck's labeling with these settings, it looks pretty good (see screenshot) and is very flexible.

- Icon --> Version with the blank label space. (screenshot has: 
- Font: Microsoft Sans Serif
- Size: 9pt
- Vertical Align: Bottom
- Color: #6fd519 [long, green], #3eb8ec [short, blue]
- Show Title (yes)

@KyleK29 what is your hotkey execution command in your hotekey file for DAS Pro for doing the montage swap? I know this is an older post but Just got my stream deck today, your post and info have been super helpful 

[KyleK29 258]

5 hours ago, jero20 said:

@KyleK29 what is your hotkey execution command in your hotekey file for DAS Pro for doing the montage swap? I know this is an older post but Just got my stream deck today, your post and info have been super helpful 

What montage swap did you want? I had a few, but I discontinued them as they were either replaced by native DAS functions or not ever used.

 

-Kyle

[jero20 0]

I figured it out already lol thanks tough

 

I gotta say after doing some trading with it today. This is pretty cool 

[phinez 0]

Found this thread super helpful for someone new to trading on Hot Keys (need time get up the learning curve with memorizing hot keys) 

Is everyone using SD or is there other lower cost and similar quality devices to consider (see @Norm mentioned Razer Tartarus v2)

SD now has a 32 keys device - is 15 keys more than enough or would you all recommend going with 32 keys?

Thanks in advance for helping a new trader here. 

[Alastair 110]

1 hour ago, Josephine Lau said:

Found this thread super helpful for someone new to trading on Hot Keys (need time get up the learning curve with memorizing hot keys) 

Is everyone using SD or is there other lower cost and similar quality devices to consider (see @Norm mentioned Razer Tartarus v2)

SD now has a 32 keys device - is 15 keys more than enough or would you all recommend going with 32 keys?

Thanks in advance for helping a new trader here. 

 

U should also know u can run the SD software on ur mobile phone/tablet (new phone or second device)......to test or permanently. $3/mth.......pls consult the ELGATO website for more details.  Same basic setup.  Trial period also available.. I highly recommend.

[smp 9]

On 8/15/2020 at 6:37 PM, phinez said:

SD now has a 32 keys device - is 15 keys more than enough or would you all recommend going with 32 keys?

I would go for the 32 key. 

In my case I've got two layouts, one for short and one for long and they share some common keys (for chart settings, news, etc) and I've just about used all the buttons on those two.  The SD has also enabled me to rapidly evolve my shortcuts without having to keep remembering what's where.

For other software such as CAD I also use a tablet with hot key shortcut software as that allows a huge number of buttons, however for trading I want the feedback of a physical key when pressed and also the feel of the raised button when preparing to click for more time sensitive trades.  

[wklodge 2]

On 7/10/2018 at 11:06 AM, ALG said:

I bought an Elgato Streamdeck but I am unable to figure out how to setup the hotkeys.  I went to system, then hotkey, gave it a title, then in hotkey: click to assign ----- WHAT DO I DO NOW? I tried hitting the DAS hotkey on the Montage when it says "observing keystokes" but it just keeps going back to "click to assign".  ?????

Hey ALG,

I'm having a similar problem. Seems easy to set up but mine isn't working. I was able to hotkey websites, but not my trading hotkeys. The title and Action for each is filled in, but none work. The "user manual" doesn't help either. Apparently others have gotten it to work. I'm using TradeStation instead of DAS so I have more restrictions on my hotkeys...need a separate one for each Buy, each Sell,etc. I bought the larger XL box b/c of this. Let me know if you get the problem solved. I will do in turn. Thanks. William

[Jose Pumar 0]

I would actually recommend the genovation control pad for hotkeys. It is almost the same price as the big elegato streamdeck except it has 48 keys. The software is really easy to use and you can even print out images to stick to each button. Highly recommend it.

[KyleK29 258]

On 8/25/2020 at 5:42 AM, wklodge said:

Hey ALG,

I'm having a similar problem. Seems easy to set up but mine isn't working. I was able to hotkey websites, but not my trading hotkeys. The title and Action for each is filled in, but none work. The "user manual" doesn't help either. Apparently others have gotten it to work. I'm using TradeStation instead of DAS so I have more restrictions on my hotkeys...need a separate one for each Buy, each Sell,etc. I bought the larger XL box b/c of this. Let me know if you get the problem solved. I will do in turn. Thanks. William

 

You may have figured this out, but for users just reading through this with a similar issue. If I'm understanding you correctly (or the other poster) .. the procedure of setting up hotkeys in StreamDeck is:

 

1) Create a Hotkey in the program you're wanting to control. For example in DAS maybe you create a FocusPrice hotkey with the combination of "Ctrl+F". You'd then go into the StreamDeck, create a new button (under the available actions -> System -> Hotkey), and assign that button the Ctrl+F command by clicking the "Hotkey: click-to-assign" section, it'll change to "Observing keystrokes" and then you hit Ctrl+F (the key combo you setup in DAS for the action). Give it a name + icon and it should now work within DAS. 

 

3 hours ago, Jose Pumar said:

I would actually recommend the genovation control pad for hotkeys. It is almost the same price as the big elegato streamdeck except it has 48 keys. The software is really easy to use and you can even print out images to stick to each button. Highly recommend it.

I wouldn't consider them the same class of device. Both can certainly be used and you should use what you're most comfortable with .. but I've always felt the X-Key and Genovation peripherals are overpriced these days given they haven't adapted to the competition in the marketplace. They used to command that price when they were the only options aimed at the Video/Sound Editing industry (has a ton of commands), but times have changed. If I was designing a product for them to compete, I'd bring out a modular StreamDeck-like device with modules for digital (StreamDeck like) keys, standard keys, touch, display panels, various sliders, and dials that you can mix and match to fit certain command intense workflows. 

The advantage the StreamDeck (and other digital button keypads) offers is the ability to swap the buttons on the fly for a limitless (I'm sure there's a hard cap somewhere) number of hotkey buttons. You can only display 32 at a time though. For example, I have three sets of 32 buttons .. one for Long positions, one for Short positions, and one for Premarket. This is in addition to multi-level profiles for Photoshop, Illustrator, Fusion360, gaming, and other software.

As a cheap alternative, you can get a programmable gaming keypad for way less or a genetic keypad and assign the buttons with third-party software (targets that keypads HWID). I believe Norm uses a standard Numpad external (~$19) with mapped buttons and stickers on the buttons.

 

Edited December 7, 2020 by KyleK29

[ChrisReath 0]

Does anyone have the issue where the Stream Deck just won't execute sometimes?  I'll press a button to "Sell 20%" for some reason and it just won't execute, and I'll have to resort to clicking the button on the montage.  A short time later it will start working again.