As an alternative to a stream deck, I started using a MIDI board last year. I tried a copule and settled on the Behringer X-Touch Mini [1]. It's less than $100. What I primarily use it for is volume control (including muting). Like I have a particular knobs for Chrome, Master Volume and games. This is all pretty easy to set up with something like MIDI Mixer [2]. There are Youtube videos on it.
I also use the media controls for Spotify.
This particular board has extra buttons you can use for, say, muting Zoom.
As an aside, volume on Windows is a horrible mess. You can have an external speaker volume, a system Master volume, an app-specific volume (the last 2 through the Windows Volume Mixer) and then volume settings inside a game.
One thing I appreciate about iOS for example is there's just one volume for what you're doing. There are separate volumes (eg ringer, speaker, music) but you only ever adjust one and it's context-dependent. Listening to music? You adjust music volume. On a call? You're adjusting call volume. Not on a call? You're adjusting ringer volume.
In an ideal world, the hardware volume could be synced to the system master volume and there would be no game or app specific volumes. All of these would be deffered to the volume mixer. Or at least any in-game or in-app controls would merely adjust that volume.
I can but dream.
The only thing this particular board doesn't have is motorized sliders for volume. I didn't really find any options for this less than $300-500 and they tended to be much bigger boards. I'd really prefer a slider to a knob but that's just nit-picking.
[1]: https://www.behringer.com/product.html?modelCode=P0B3M
[2]: https://www.midi-mixer.com/
I also use the media controls for Spotify.
This particular board has extra buttons you can use for, say, muting Zoom.
As an aside, volume on Windows is a horrible mess. You can have an external speaker volume, a system Master volume, an app-specific volume (the last 2 through the Windows Volume Mixer) and then volume settings inside a game.
One thing I appreciate about iOS for example is there's just one volume for what you're doing. There are separate volumes (eg ringer, speaker, music) but you only ever adjust one and it's context-dependent. Listening to music? You adjust music volume. On a call? You're adjusting call volume. Not on a call? You're adjusting ringer volume.
In an ideal world, the hardware volume could be synced to the system master volume and there would be no game or app specific volumes. All of these would be deffered to the volume mixer. Or at least any in-game or in-app controls would merely adjust that volume.
I can but dream.
The only thing this particular board doesn't have is motorized sliders for volume. I didn't really find any options for this less than $300-500 and they tended to be much bigger boards. I'd really prefer a slider to a knob but that's just nit-picking.
[1]: https://www.behringer.com/product.html?modelCode=P0B3M
[2]: https://www.midi-mixer.com/