Streaming in 2020/21
It's no surprise that streaming took off in a big way in 2020. With more people having more spare time than usual, the major streaming platforms such as Twitch, Youtube and Facebook saw a lot of growth. YouTube Gaming had its biggest year yet, with 100 billion (yes, billion, with a B) watch time hours and over 40 million active gaming channels. Twitch saw the number of active streamers almost double from 3.6 million to 6.9 million. It's clear that Facebook has also seen a huge increase in usage. The start of 2021 is set to follow this trend, with Twitch, YouTuber and Facebook Gaming all continuing to grow both their user and viewer bases.
With such extreme growth comes fierce competition for viewership and it begs the question, how do you stand out from the ever growing crowd of streamers? We've seen $20,000 Pokemon card pulls live on Twitch, as well as new deadlift world records being set live on stream. However, if deadlifting 501 killograms on Twitch is out of the question, then you're going to have to come up with a more creative solution. That's where Lumia Stream comes in!
Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson Deadlifts 501kg Live on Twitch to set a new world record
Integrations with Twitch, YouTube and Facebook
Lumia Stream allows you to connect your smart lights and devices such as Phillips Hue, Nanoleafs, TPLink Plugs and more (visit our Lumia Stream Integrations page for the full list of compatible devices) to your stream. This allows them to react to alerts like new subcriptions and follows, as well as enabling them to be controlled by chat via commands or channel points depending on your streaming platform. Even better still, Lumia Stream is not just limited to controlling smart lights. It can control a host of smart devices including smart plugs to power on or off any appliances during an alert. Lumia Stream can also control parts of OBS and Streamlabs OBS (SLOBS) to trigger scene changes or source visibility - It's a phenomenal way to set yourself apart from the literally millions of channels on Twitch, YouTube and Facebook. That's right, Lumia Stream works on all three major streaming platforms and getting your smart lights set up and connected couldn't be any easier.
What will interactive smart lights do for your stream?
If you ask around or do a little research into what makes for a great stream and keeps people coming back, you'll quickly learn that your stream needs to be both interactive and unique in some way. Lumia Stream helps you tick both of those boxes. There are over 7 million channels streaming on Twitch alone, more if you include YouTube and Facebook streaming too. Lumia Stream allows you to take your alert customisation even further by having your smart lights react in a unique and exciting way when you recieve alerts. You can choose when to have your lights triggered i.e. only for subscriptions or for all alerts like follows, cheers and raids. Each alert can have its own unique activity so your lights will react differently depending on which alert has been triggered. This encourages your viewers to support your stream by following, subscribing and raiding in, just to see the light show in action!
On top of the alerts, you can allow your Twitch, YouTube and Facebook viewers to interact with your lights by using chat commands to trigger colours or events - typing !police can make your smart lights flash red and blue, for example. You can restrict these commands to certain users such as subcribers only, adding value to those viewers that do decide to subscribe to your channel. You can also set up any of your light shows to be triggered by channel points (Twitch only), thus further encouraging your viewers to stick around and earn some points so they can play with your smart lights and devices!
How do I get Lumia Stream?
It's easy! Just head to the Lumia Stream website to download the Lumia Stream application. Select your platform (Windows or Mac), download the installer and run it once it's done. Open Lumia Stream and go through the set up process where you select your streaming platform (Twitch, Facebook or YouTube) and follow the on screen instructions. Keep an eye on the Lumia Stream YouTube page for upcoming videos demonstrating how to set up Lumia Stream with your smart devices and broacasting software, as well as showcases of new features!