Elgato Prompter
design
The concept of a teleprompter is nothing new but it’s also a toy most streamers would never have considered. Like so many other products in its range however, Elgato has taken an existing bit of tech, refined it, and launched a more intuitive version for the masses. The Elgato Prompter is the perfect example of this strategy working at its best because there’s nothing particularly unique about the Prompter, it’s not reinventing the wheel, it’s just making it as round as can be.
There are plenty of teleprompters on Amazon already but they all share a common drawback, they’re a standalone device that’ll need you to provide your own screen or tablet for. This is the biggest win for the Elgato Prompter, it’s a true all-in-one unit that’s just a single USB-C cable away from being ready to go. The 9” built-in screen becomes a seamless external monitor for your PC and while the 1200x600px resolution might not sound a lot on the spec sheet, it’s more than sharp enough for its purpose with no rough edges. It’s also sufficiently sized that even at larger font sizes there’s plenty of screen space for multiple lines of text without looking like your grandma’s text messages.
It’s worth noting though that while everything is nicely proportioned, the Elgato Prompter is quite a chunky device for home situations. Angles are key for a teleprompter to work effectively so understandably each part is fixed, but by the time you’ve added the camera platform, the Prompter’s footprint becomes surprisingly large. I ended up having to pull my desk a couple of inches away from the wall in order to mount the Elgato Prompter above my monitor, not the end of the world but a consideration for tight spaces.
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Streamers in particular may also need to factor in vertical clearance or move the Prompter off to the side with larger monitors, another element that isn’t an issue so much as something to be aware of. Depending on your camera there could be as much as 10 or 12cm of extra space now required between the bottom of your lens and the top of your monitor to fit the Elgato Prompter’s flat screen. In my setup this meant ending up with a considerably higher angle Facecam shot, more than I’d have liked, and when swapping to an XL monitor like the Philips Evnia 42M2N8900 it felt like my viewers were looking at the top of my head.
Mounting is a simple affair though as the Prompter is, to the surprise of nobody, fully in-sync with the rest of the Elgato Multi Mount range and follows existing industry standards. That means any existing bars, arms, extensions or even one of the Elgato Wave Mic Arms will work a treat. It’s the kind of across the board integration I’ve come to expect from Elgato gear, but it’s still good to see nonetheless. You’ll also find two standard cold shoe mounts on the top corners of the Elgato Prompter, perfect for adding mics or something like a Key Light Mini – nice touch.
It’s not just mounting hardware where the Elgato Prompter is happy to play nice though, I was impressed by how widely compatible the Prompter is with cameras, largely without the need for extra accessories. You’ll find three different backplates in the box, with specific options for Elgato’s own Facecam and DSLR setups as well as a universal shroud which is what I paired with a Sony ZV-1. It is also possible to mount a phone with the Prompter, but you’ll need to grab a grip separately and Elgato’s Multi Mount option appears pretty hard to come by in the UK. That said, it’s another standard screw size so I’d imagine third party mounting accessories will work here too.
The Elgato Prompter mounting platform itself allows for a good amount of travel forwards and backwards to accommodate different lens lengths, but being picky I’d have liked to have seen some level of side to side movement too. As my ZV-1’s lens isn’t central in the camera body, the whole unit sits well off to the side in the Elgato Prompter as a result, it fits, but some flexibility to line things up would have been welcome.
performance
There’s not much point building suspense and dragging things out here, when it comes to performance the Elgato Prompter is superb in just about every way. It’s as simple as that. I’ve been using the Elgato Prompter consistently for both work and streaming for a few weeks now and in that time it’s already established itself as a key part of my setup. How did I ever live without a Prompter before?
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Funnily enough however, at no point have I actually used the Elgato Prompter as a teleprompter, and that’s kind of the point. It neatly integrated as an extra monitor with a hidden secret and offered a load more flexibility for my actual needs than just reading scripts (it does a great job of this too though, obviously). Through testing I jumped between using the Prompter for reading Twitch chat while streaming, making video calls for work and at one point even just watching YouTube videos while gaming.
Once connected via the single, included USB-A to USB-C cable, Windows simply recognises the Elgato Prompter as a new display, no different to plugging in an extra full size monitor. The result is full freedom to drag whatever you’d like over onto that window but I’ll admit there were a number of occasions early on where I lost my cursor because it had snuck over onto the Prompter window. With that wrangled though, being able to drag a Microsoft Teams window onto the Prompter and make digital eye contact with the person I was speaking to proved a game changer for video calls.
The same was true when it came to reading Twitch chat while streaming. There’s always going to be a slight conversational disconnect between chat and streamer, but somehow being able to look down the camera while reading and responding to someone made the exchange feel more natural. You don’t tend to look away from someone while listening to and answering them and the Elgato Prompter manages to bridge this gap.
By default the dedicated chat mode (which is officially flagged as being in beta) will behave like a normal chat window, new messages will bump older ones further up the screen until they disappear. If you have a Stream Deck Plus too however, direct integration with the Prompter offers the control to scroll back through using one of the knobs. It’s wonderfully intuitive and not having to tab out of my game to scroll back to find something in chat makes life far simpler for keeping on top of things.
Across the board the Elgato Prompter confidently delivered a bright, clear and colourful picture without having any impact on the video quality from my camera behind. I understand how teleprompters work and yet it still feels like some special kind of magic that makes it all possible. In the real world that special magic is a mix of physics and the Elgato Camera Hub app, and while the physics (shockingly) never waivered, annoyingly the current version of the software sometimes did.
Like the rest of Elgato’s app offerings, Camera Hub is simple and logical to use with the Prompter and largely set and forget. You’re able to choose from a small range of basic system fonts (including OpenDyslexic, which is a nice accessibility touch), change their size, colour and basic layout as well as the background colour behind it all. This all works fine, however these choices are universal across both the teleprompter and chat modes which feels like an oversight. The layout I’d want when reading a script is vastly different to how I want my Twitch chat to appear and these can’t currently be controlled independently. There’s also no profile functionality, so you’re stuck with a single setup for all users in all scenarios. Easy to change later I’m sure, but noticeably absent for now.
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The chat mode is prominently labelled beta so I won’t be too critical but it’s clear the experience isn’t quite finished. While it does work, I found the connection bizarrely flaky and I often needed to disconnect and reconnect my Twitch account in the Camera Hub app to get anything to display. I also found issues with it randomly dropping out mid stream and not showing new messages without warning, meaning I always had to keep a backup chat window open to keep half an eye on. You won’t be presented anything other than standard messages either, so special messages like channel point redemptions or sub messages just won’t show at all and become easy to miss.
Again, Elgato is honest and upfront that this functionality is a work in progress and the starting point is good, but those looking just to the Elgato Prompter for streaming shouldn’t expect a polished experience just yet.
The final little quirk is a strange one and while Elgato has already made a small software tweak during my testing, I’m not sure it’s possible to fully overcome. You can’t turn the Prompter off without yanking out the USB-C cable. There’s no physical power button and while there is a software power toggle in Camera Hub, it just sets the screen to black rather than actually shutting anything off. Even with the power supposed ‘off’, Windows still recognises the Prompter as a connected display and your mouse will still disappear without a trace into that area. Admittedly this is just annoying more than anything else, but I’m amazed nobody in the development team asked the question “how do people turn it off?”.
summed up
The Elgato Prompter isn’t perfect, but it’s damn close and has the potential to get even closer in the future. Both the idea itself and the physical execution are excellent with superb compatibility with both cameras and mounting options and a genuinely wide range of different use cases.
The only real drawback is an easily fixable one, Prompter’s integration into Camera Hub feels a little undercooked and there are basic features that I feel are missing and do take a little of the shine off the experience. It’s manageable though and even with these oddities the Elgato Prompter is an excellent addition to a setup that’ll deliver bags of value over time.
