---
title: 'The Best Elgato Stream Deck Alternative! (Loupedeck Live S)'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=kvd8f_GxNps'
video_id: 'kvd8f_GxNps'
date: 2026-08-01
duration_sec: 688
---

# The Best Elgato Stream Deck Alternative! (Loupedeck Live S)

> Source: [The Best Elgato Stream Deck Alternative! (Loupedeck Live S)](https://youtube.com/watch?v=kvd8f_GxNps)

## Summary

This video reviews the Loupedeck Live S and Loupedeck Live, two customizable stream decks that compete with the Elgato Stream Deck. The presenter unboxes both devices, compares build quality, price, and controls, then demonstrates how to set up a custom live streaming control center using the Loupedeck software and integrations.

### Key Points

- **Loupedeck as an Elgato alternative** [00:01] — The Loupedeck Live S is introduced as a primary alternative to the Elgato Stream Deck for making streaming operations more efficient.
- **Unboxing and package contents** [00:13] — Both devices include a braided USB-C cable, a USB-A to USB-C adapter, and a stand; the Live comes in a larger box due to its increased size.
- **Pricing difference** [00:42] — The Loupedeck Live S costs $189, while the Loupedeck Live costs $269, with the price difference reflected in materials and available controls.
- **Build quality** [00:56] — The Loupedeck Live has an aluminum front-facing finish, while the Live S uses a plasticky finish; both feel high quality and sturdy on the desk.
- **Buttons, dials, and feedback** [01:25] — The Live S has 15 touch buttons, 4 physical buttons, and 2 analog dials; the Live has 12 touch buttons, 8 physical buttons, and 6 analog dials. Touch buttons give vibration/sound feedback, and dials are tactile for precise adjustments.
- **Pages and navigation** [02:07] — Users can configure multiple pages and swipe horizontally to access them; dial-specific actions appear on vertically swiped pages. Display brightness is adjustable.
- **Software installation** [02:44] — Download the Loupedeck software from the official website for Windows or Mac and install it like any other program.
- **Software interface and profiles** [03:10] — The app has dropdowns for the device, profiles, and workspaces. Dynamic Mode auto-switches to the profile tied to the active application. The actions panel is searchable and categorized by Custom OS, Loupedeck, and plugin-specific actions.
- **Building a custom stream control center** [04:47] — Start from a default profile, go to Manage Profiles, add a new empty profile, and drag actions like start streaming, recording, replay buffer, and scene switching onto buttons. Streamlabs Desktop, OBS, and Twitch Studio have direct integrations.
- **Twitch and Spotify integrations** [07:11] — Signing into Twitch unlocks actions like viewer count, create clip, and run commercial. Spotify integration requires Premium and lets you assign volume/mute to dials and playback controls, no API key needed.
- **Custom actions for unsupported apps** [07:50] — For apps without plugins, create custom actions with keyboard shortcuts, e.g., Discord mute (Ctrl+Shift+M) or Insta360 Link webcam positions (Alt+1/Alt+2). You can upload custom icons for these actions.
- **Who should buy a Loupedeck** [10:24] — The Loupedeck is best for someone not married to Elgato's ecosystem. The Live S fits the majority of users due to its smaller size and lower price, while the Live suits power users who want more physical controls.

### Conclusion

The Loupedeck Live S offers excellent value for most streamers at $189, while the Loupedeck Live provides more physical controls for $269. If you are not tied to Elgato's ecosystem, a Loupedeck can give you deeper customization and a more tactile control experience.

## Transcript

probably know that Elgato stream deck has been one of the primary devices that people will typically recommend to make your streaming operations more efficient but they're not the only company that makes products like this so today we're
going to be taking a look at the Loop deck live in live EST to see how much deck live in live EST to see how much easier these products really make live deck livees it comes in a nice package presentation in the Box you're going to
get the loop deck live s a braided USBC cable with a USB a to USBC adapter as well as a stand the loop deck live also presentation this box is going to be a little bit bigger based on the increased
size of this device it also comes with a braided USBC cable a usba adapter in addition to the stand as for the pricing between these two devices the loop deck live s is going to come in at $189 whereas the loop deck live is going
to come in at $269 of course with the price differ features the loop deck live has a nice aluminum front-facing finish to it whereas the live s does have more of a plasticky finish both of them feel high
quality and sturdy on the back side of both of these devices you're going to device stabilized on your desk the stands do feel a little bit on the cheaper side but once you actually get them locked into the slots they actually
feel pretty solid I never ran into issues with the stand falling apart the touch buttons on the loop deck livees you're going to get 15 buttons going to get 12 now keep in mind the buttons are not physical buttons it is a
touch screen so when you press an action key it's going to give you a nice vibration or a little sound feedback to let you know that you pressed it there are of course physical buttons you can press here as well the lives has four
physical buttons and two analog dials whereas the live has eight physical buttons and six analog dials so the live definitely gives you more configuration you at a single time but that doesn't mean you get any less customization
options on the live s you can configure multiple Pages swipe left and right horizontally to access those pages and if you have additional actions assigned to your Dows then you can just swipe vertically to access those the display
quality that both of these Loop decks output is really solid you can see all of your assigned actions very clearly and you can even adjust that brightness display if you'd like the Dow you get on each of these devices is tactile meaning
it won't be a smooth motion when you're turning the knob but rather a precise adjustment that you can feel with each turn so now how about I show you guys how you can integrate the loop deck into your gaming live streaming setup by
Windows or Mac computer you'll then need to go to Loop deck's website and download the software applicable to your machine you can install Loop deck software like you with any other program on your computer and once it's complete
guys how you can use the loop deck to build out your own custom stream control build out your own custom stream control center let me first
application so that you know how to navigate it and you know what's what this application you're going to see a drop down for the loop deck device that right of that you're going to have a drop down menu for your profiles and
what a profile is for the loop deck is essentially a collection of actions either tied to your computer itself or to a specific application now you guys are also going to see a feature here called dyamic mode so with this turned
on if you're in the specific application that your profile is associated with then that's the profile that Loop deck is going to show now moving over to the workspace dropdown this is going to be a more finite collection of your profiles
this feature makes it easy and clean to organize the different acction associated with a specific profile speaking of actions if you look over to going to see all of the different actions that you can possibly apply to
your Loop deck you'll see that they're broken out by either custom OS Loop deck or application plug-in specific actions on the left hand side you can search for specific actions by using the search function and you'll see the actions will
either have a button press or a dow looking icon next to it now if there's an app that you don't see the actions for first make sure that it's not hidden Within your show plugins menu and you can also search the marketplace as well
for not only just plugins but pre-made profiles icon packs and more for applications that you might want to use that the loop deck Marketplace does not I'll show you guys some examples of how that can work in just a second okay
let's make a live streaming control setup so I'm actually going to do this from scratch what I have up right now is just the live s's default profile which streaming but we want to do something more custom here so what we can do is go
up to where the main profile is set select the three dotted icon and I'm going to go to manage profiles then I'm going to go to the right hand side here to add a new empty profile I'm going to name this live stream Central select
okay we have it selected now close and now we have a completely empty profile after we unassign that so the primary streaming application we're going to be using today is streamlabs desktop you can also use obs twitch Studio they have
direct Integrations with Loop deck as well but to leverage streamlabs I'm icon right here the first action I'm going to want to be able to do is to start streaming so I'm going to take this toggle right here and just drag it
onto one of the empty unassigned slots I'm also going to want to have one for recording as well let's also have the replay buffer toggle and the replay
buffer save now I also want to set up some actions to switch between different scenes within my streamlabs project so let's first make sure we have some scenes set up that we can actually play with so I'm going to add my capture card
here there it is let's throw the face cam in there too why not there we are resize here and then we're going to add another scene it's going to name it full face cam We'll add the insta 360 as an existing Source select add and there we
go so now we have our full face cam source as well as the game and now back in Loop deck I can go to my scenes drop down I'm going to select full face cam we're going to bring that right to this and game play here so now back in my
streamlabs project I can switch between my gameplay scene and my full FaceCam with a single click of a button now I also have this media video graphic that I want to include within my project Here and Now within Loop deck I can go to the
sources folder go to the gameplay scene folder and you can see that the source that I just added into streamlabs has populated right in Loop deck and now I can take this let's drag it to this assignment and now when I go to disable
that source and then reenable it that subscribe animation is going to appear going to add to this profile are some twitch actions now I will need to sign into Twitch in order for this to work literally just one click if you're
computer and now I have the access to use any of these actions directly with my Twitch account let's do viewer account create clip and run commercial
nothing you can even set how many seconds you want those ads to run for go ahead and select save and you're good now you guys remember earlier I mentioned not every application has a plug-in available for Loop deck so I
want to be able to integrate my insta 360 link webcam that I'm using for my FaceCam as well as Discord with this Loop deck so one way I can do that just within this General default profile is just by right clicking on one of the
unassigned actions I can go to create a custom action and then I can use keyboard shortcut this first one's going to be for Discord mute scroll down a that you need to select for it so that'll be control shift M for muting
yourself on Discord select save and what's also nice is that you can select this icon image here to be able to upload your very own so I can go ahead and select the browse option go ahead and find the image that I want to use
select it I can modify the icons text here and then go ahead and select save and now back in Discord I can mute and unmute myself at a single tab I'm going to add another custom action this one's going to be for the insta 360 Link in
the Control software for this webcam I set two different positions that I want my webcam to adjust to the shortcut for this is going to be alt one and ALT two now if we go back to stream Labs I can switch between these two different
webcam positions at the single click of a button this page is starting to fill up a little bit let's add another one by selecting the plus button there this one's going to be for our Spotify music you're going to need Spotify Premium in
going to need to log into your Spotify account again just a click of a single button and you don't even need an API key how awesome is that I'm going to add the Spotify volume rotation option to one of the dials here which is going to
apply to the whole profile let's also bring in the toggle mute function to that dial as well so now when I twist it volume raises are lowers and if I tap it it's going to mute let's go to the playback folder previous track Shuffle
play next track toggle playback and I want to assign one more action to this dial so back in the streamlab section in Loop deck we're going to go to the audio folder and let's take the Elgato 4kx and put it on this dial if I want to assign
even more stuff to these Dows all I need to do is just add another page for the Dows as well just like I did for the pages going horizontal we can also assign things to the circle buttons out here you can do Pages or workspaces for
example for easier access you can also modify the colors of these Circle buttons If you want and now I can switch between these two pages with quite ease without having to swipe I'm not a big fan of the swiping just because you kind
of can tap things accidentally having the buttons for Pages makes it pretty clean so now who who is the loop deck for I would definitely say it's for someone that's not married to elgato's ecosystem or environment such as their
lights microphone software all of that all together cuz that stuff works well everything's built into it but with something like the loop deck live your level of customization can go much deeper especially if you put in the time
to learn the live s on the other hand is a device that I think would fit for the majority of you guys it's smaller form factor has a cheaper price and most importantly this device definitely lived up to its expectations for being a live
in the near future that Loop deck gets support for YouTube streaming like it has for twitch right now and that the streamlabs integration comes to the Mac deck for sending me both of these devices to test and try out for this
video if you're interested in either one of these products feel free to use my it does help out the channel I appreciate you staying to the very end appreciate you staying to the very end and I will see you in the next one peace