That said the StreamDeck is a bit too expensive for what it actually is, those buttons aren't individual LCDs it's actually 1 common size LCD panel with clear windows as buttons. The buttons themselves are conductive rings pressing against a PCB or membrane. Kind of like if a Nintendo controller but with punched out rings as buttons. I don't know that there's anything special about that device itself other than some software. Like the button images are just icons on an LCD screen.
Correct, it is just a small LCD behind the button grid, which is really a cost-effective and pretty clever way to do it. There are companies that make keys with displays in them, but the costs are pretty absurd. On the upside, you could locate the butons individually on a control panel rather than being limited to a single grid of buttons.
Besides being made of consumer grade plastic, the construction probably it would probably work out OK in a shop, the way the button layer is constructed it's probably fairly well sealed.
It's actually pretty solidly built, for a piece of consumer/semi-professional gear. The clear buttons feel more like polycarbonate than acrylic, which is good since acrylic tends to craze and crack when exposed to coolant.
The implementation here is pretty cool, seems like a good idea. I don't know anything about StreamDeck software but I wonder how hard it would be just to implement something like this on a just a basic LCD with a custom button overlay panel....software wise
Building something similar from scratch is really not that hard from a software/firmware standpoint. I think it would be a fair amount of work to replicate similar hardware so it looks as nice and functions as reliably, but not impossible.
