I’m thinking of asking Santa for a Stream Deck for Christmas. I already have enough devices with buttons and switches, but I’m wondering if the deck could be used as an annunciator panel when programmed with Spadnext. Any input from Stream Deck users will be greatly appreciated!
Dave
That’s certainly possible but an expensive way to get an annunciator panel. Air Manager and a tablet would be more versatile and cheaper.
I didn’t realize Air Manager could do that. My friend uses it with a touchscreen monitor but I didn’t know it could be used with a tablet (which I would need to buy).
I use Axis and Ohs and I can use my streamdeck as an annunciator panel if I wanted to with the software. I’m pretty sure you could do the same with SPAD. I haven’t done a full panel but I have buttons that flash master warning and master caution on the TBM 850 that I can press to reset/acknowledge.
If this streamdeck is solely for this one purpose, I’d look at touch panels as well. However, if you think you’ll use it for other uses, it’s a totally viable idea. I have almost 100% of my switches in cockpits setup on streamdeck so I can easily start engines, turn on lights etc. You could also do this with Air Manager and a touchscreen as well. I use both depending on the plane.
There are free uploads of scripts and button sets for the streamdeck for the most popular planes. If you buy Air Manager (get it for the PC, not an iPad) then it comes with a huge amount of free gauges you can drag and drop on panels. You can also find a few more quality gauges on Github (and I have no idea why they aren’t part of the main library.) I’ve also bought a few Air Manager instrument/panel sets that have saved me a bunch of time. I bought a set for the BN2 Islander and was up and running with it in about 30 min of tweaking.
That all said, I think there is a little more wide spread community use of RPN scripts with SPAD or Axis and Ohs as opposed to LUA scripting in Air Manager so you might have an easier time gathering various buttons to do the things you want with the streamdeck path. I use Air Manager if the instruments are already available and can tweak how they work under the hood. I use the streamdeck if I need to go wild and build something totally from scratch as I understand the scripting behind it better.
You don’t need a tablet actually I just suggested that because most folks seem to have one these days. and with software like Spacedesk they can be used as windows displays. You can use anything that can be added as a windows monitor actually. A small cheap display for instance.
If you go the AM route absolutely use the desktop version. The iOS or Android specific versions cannot run your own custom instruments only those available from the existing AM library
Here is a quick pic so you can better visualize. This is my streamdeck setup for the Kodiak. The touch screen in back is Air Manager. Both the screen and the streamdeck both reflect the actual position of the switch in the sim.
Wow. this is all very useful information. Thanks for taking the time to explain all this!
Dave
Expensive, yes, but especially for Dev work, they save so much time, and have the potential to display so much, in an almost infinite number of pages, in a non mouyse, easyily defined mechanical buttons with DYNAMIC graphic backgrounds, each displaying Multiple Things, that the amount of time saved, more than justified the cost.
2 Steam Desk
2 xtouch-mini
.
FLYING
.
DIAGNOSTICS
I honestly do not know how anyone could fly their plane without at least one Stream Deck. FANTASTIC what it can do and there was a software update lately that added some additional features (which the company seems to do frequently). FWIW
There are many solutions each with their pro’s and con’s. I’m sure users with other solutions would say the same about what they use. For me with Air Manager there is not a Streamdeck in sight. No need for it. Mouseless and with the added benefit of instruments and controls located and looking like they do in the real aircraft.
I am considering a streamdeck though but not for flying directly.
That is a good setup. I use SPAD and two stream decks (one XL, the other a plus). They are great; very configurable for so many aircraft types.
Thanks for all the information! I think I see a stream deck in my future 