Controlling an HDMI Switcher with a Stream Deck

1

I was thinking of attaching one of my monitors to an HDMI switcher, so that I can occasionally plug in a 2nd Mac (I’m thinking especially for the use of Zoom here) and have the Stream Deck control whether the switcher is set to my primary Mac (newer) or 2nd Mac (older with Zoom). I think that may be possible with Serial Control or RS232 but these are just names/numbers to me. Can anyone advise what switcher I might want to invest in (without spending the earth) and how I could do it on the Stream Deck? Alternatively, a response of “tell 'im he’s dreaming, love” would work too, if that’s appropriate.

2

You can get HDMI and KVM switches with physical buttons or remote controls which would meet your button press switching needs, but not your Stream Deck requirement.

If your monitor has multiple inputs you may well be able to utilise display data channel (DDC) to control the mobitor’s input internal switching.

Here’s someone doing it on Windows:

And here’s a Mac equivalent of the command line tool he was using.

Does one of those options sufficiently meet your needs?

3

@sylumer Thanks for that but this monitor only has one hdmi input. So I might end up going with a manual switcher setup. That will be ok but I thought I’d put it out there to see if there was a more automated approach.

4

I think some HDMI switches do support DDC commands. In that case you could have the StreamDeck invoke the ddcctl command to switch inputs. In theory…

Also worth noting that many docks do not pass through DDC commands. (Unfortunately the one I use with my MBP is one of them).

5

I use an HDMI switcher to share a monitor between my work laptop and personal Mac mini. It is in a not easy to access position in my work space. I use a SwitchBot that I control with my iPhone. Now I’ve only started using it this week, but so far it has worked flawlessly.

Not exactly what you are looking for, but a way to automate the switching.

Good luck with whatever solution you come up with.

IMG_2010
IMG_20101920×2560 421 KB

6

Thank you all for this feedback and input. I will consider which way to go from here.