The good first: If you only need it for the audio part of your streaming setup, I would still recommend it. There's very little competition when it comes to built-in real-time effects that you might need for your room situation. Hence two stars.
I have done a lot of research and the product concept is exactly what I want: built-in effects that run independently of the computer, video streaming, flexible miking and a compelling user interface, including a presentation mode.
Why I wouldn't recommend it:
Unfortunately, it seems to be an MVP that is not fully developed. It's annoying, for example, that the headphone jacks are on the back. RODE did the right thing with the RODE CASTER DUO. It is also incomprehensible that a proprietary solution is used to connect iOS devices, which does not work with the standard USB-C Lightning cable.
I could get over all this and was aware of it before I bought the unit.
The fact that the presentation mode is not saved as a setting beyond a power cycle is a hindrance. I was told by customer service that this could be fixed with a firmware upgrade, but not when.
The absolute showstopper, and the reason for my return, are massive connectivity problems with the video stream. This has been widely reported and it looked like it had been fixed. Far from it. This may be the case with OS/X machines. Stable operation on a Windows machine was not possible for me. Constantly reconnecting the device and also restarting the software didn't help at all. A frozen video stream in the middle of a call and then minutes of fiddling around to get the image back is an absolute no-go for professional use.
Unfortunately, Rode support could only reply: "Our product team will have to look into this". There was no indication of when a fix might be available. Very disappointing. Software based products are hard work. I would have expected RODE to have a proper QA team in place from the start.
I might give an MK II a chance, but in its current state it is unfortunately unusable for me.
It's a real shame, I'm very disappointed.
