If you look at a Twitch streamer, they will almost certainly use at least one Elgato product. After dominating this part of the market for years, Elgato is now shifting its primary focus from gaming with its new Neo line while also preparing a host of ai features to enhance new and existing gear.
Neo is a collection of Elgato's most popular products made simpler, more affordable and more compact so they can be easily used with a laptop or iPad. “They seem more approachable, they seem friendlier,” says Julian Fest, CEO of Elgato, in an interview with The edge. “All industrial design is focused on being more attractive to a less technical audience.”
The $99.99 Neo transmission cover It's the star of the show, essentially the command center for Elgato products. It has eight LCD keys that can be paired to automate tasks like turning on lights or joining video calls. I use the Stream Deck buttons to mute myself on calls, pause my notifications in Slack, and see what music is playing on Spotify. Elgato has added two capacitive buttons to allow you to flip through pages for an infinite number of customizable keys. There is also an information display between these buttons that acts as a digital clock that is always available.
Neo is Elgato's way of bringing its streaming experience to the masses, an acknowledgment that the line between creator and professional is increasingly blurred as more and more people participate in meetings remotely. But it's also an admission that setting up webcams, lights and microphones is not an easy task for most people.
“We want the immediate experience to be pretty seamless,” Fest says. Elgato's Neo line is designed to be plug-and-play so you can quickly and easily upgrade your setup without having to install multiple apps or modify settings. Elgato is trying to appeal to people looking for something between a basic webcam and microphone combo and the high-end audio and video setup it's typically known for.
The line includes key hardware for video calling. The $99.99 Facecam Neo The webcam supports 1080p video at 60fps, includes a built-in privacy shutter, and can be easily placed on top of a monitor or your laptop. The $89.99 Neo Wave The condenser microphone has a raised desk stand and a tap-to-mute function and will also integrate into Elgato's more advanced Wave Link app.
If you need better lighting at your desk or on the go, the $89.99 price Neo key light It is a diffuse light designed to be combined with a webcam. While Elgato's other Key Lights typically ship with stands, the Key Light Neo can be mounted on top of a laptop or monitor so it doesn't take up desk space. It has up to 800 lumens of brightness and there are controls on the front to adjust the brightness and color temperature.
The $119.99 Neo Game Capture is still deeply rooted in the history of Elgato products aimed at streamers and gamers. You can use it to capture video from a PlayStation, Xbox, or Nintendo Switch, and it also includes up to 4K/60fps pass-through support with HDR enabled. Game Capture Neo supports capture at up to 1080p 60fps, making it ideal for Twitch or YouTube streaming. It's designed to work out of the box with Discord, OBS Studio, and other apps to stream to Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok.
All of these Neo devices are available to order today, with the exception of the Facecam Neo webcam. Elgato says it's making “further adjustments” to the out-of-the-box experience and hopes to launch the Facecam Neo in May or June.
“It's the start 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 is aimed at people involved in online sales, video podcasts, events, product demos, community building and other areas where audio and visual content has been growing in recent years. “Neo is really a bet that this trend will continue to accelerate,” Fest says.
With only one exception, each product in the Neo line costs less than $100. That's still a lot more than a $20 microphone or webcam you can buy on amazon, but Neo devices are designed to be premium only at a lower price.
“We have a history of launching products where everyone says, 'It's too expensive and I can get it cheaper somewhere else,'” Fest says. “You'll always find cheaper options, but I think we've created products that, for a lot of people, will hit that sweet spot.”
The entire Neo range comes in a white finish, designed to blend into rooms with white walls. The compact nature of the Neo line also makes it easy to use these devices in smaller spaces or even while traveling.
All of these Neo products also work on iPad for the first time, a clear invitation to an emerging line of creators creating TikTok and instagram videos with just their phones or tablets. “Now we can customize an iPad and turn it into a content creation powerhouse,” says Fest. The iPad is often marketed as a creative device, but “the reality of the situation is that most people only use their iPads to watch Netflix and YouTube,” says Fest.
Even Stream Deck Neo will work on an iPad, thanks to a new SDK that will allow app developers to send a profile to the device that allows them to control their app. This fixes the many restrictions in iOS that don't exist in Windows or macOS, but means it will take some time for app developers to develop this support.
As Elgato looks at new workflows and a bigger push to stop being seen as fair For gamers, it is also considering using ai to make its products even smarter. Fest tells me that Elgato will be releasing a new strip light next month where all 160 LEDs are individually addressable. This is Elgato's first ai push, with a feature designed to improve how you create a colorful scene. “We created an interface where you can put 'I want a dark forest' and on the backend it will go to ChatGPT… which will always give us a range of RGB values that gives you three options as a user. take your pick,” says Fest.
Elgato's new Prompter hardware is also getting some ai-powered improvements. The teleprompter will soon have voice-based auto-scrolling, making it easier to read a script and not have to fiddle with buttons to pause scrolling. “A few years ago, building this would have been a headache,” says Fest, but the availability of large language models has made it much easier for the 140-person team working on these products.
But for all the advantages of ai, the use cases could eradicate the need for Elgato webcams and microphones if the future turns radically toward ai agents handling our meetings for us. “For some people, this may be attractive, but I don't think that's the future I want to fight for,” Fest says. “I think ai can help us in everything we do and can make things easier and maybe more fun. It can help unlock creativity, and that is where we will invest and try to build.”
