Colin Edwards' Raspberry Pi Pico-Powered Elgato Stream Deck Pedal Clone Cuts the Cost Considerably
Built from three switches, a Raspberry Pi Pico, and an optional RGB LED ring, this toe-tapping tool is Stream Deck compatible.
Developer Colin Edwards has put together a handy alternative to Elgato's Stream Deck Pedal, offering the same foot-based control of the eponymous Stream Deck software — but in a low-cost package powered by a Raspberry Pi Pico.
"[The Picodeck is] firmware using TinyUSB to turn a Raspberry Pi Pico into a device that works with Elgato's Stream Deck software," Edwards explains, "It should be trivial to wire this up to existing foot pedal hardware or arcade buttons."
The real Stream Deck Pedal is a slick device offering a large central trigger and two side triggers, designed to provide foot-based control over streaming and gaming using Elgato's Stream Deck software. It is, however, not cheap: The device costs $89.99, which is a lot more than a $4 Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller board and a recycled foot pedal.
To prove the concept, though, Edwards took his own version a step further — 3D-printing a three-button foot switch designed by the Ruiz Brothers and adding a mounting point for a Raspberry Pi Pico. As well as the Pico and switches, the housing also contains a Neopixel RGB LED ring for feedback.
Key to the project's success is its compatibility with official Elgato software, to which it appears as a standard Stream Deck Pedal. "The protocol mostly matches the existing Stream Deck devices but with a few tweaks for the pedal," Edwards explains. "Debugger breakpoints on the RP2040 and Wireshark with a real Stream Deck pedal were very helpful at figuring out how the Stream Deck software talks to the devices."
The project's full source code, and a pre-compiled U2F binary for the Raspberry Pi Pico, is available on Edwards' GitHub repository under an unspecified open source license.
