[Discussion] Using my Steam deck as a mini PC ?
[Discussion] Using my Steam deck as a mini PC ?
I've been considering getting a mini PC for my living room, basically only to watch online videos without ads or watch locally stored videos.
Since I have a Steam deck available that I already often dock to my screen for gaming, could I use it instead of buying a new computer?
My main concern is the impact this would have on the battery if it's plugged in for long periods of time, does it bypass the battery when it's plugged in and the battery is full ? Will other components be impacted?
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The Deck can bypass the battery when plugged in. And in fact, does so by default if the battery gets above 90%; it would stop charging the battery and just draw power directly from the USB cable.
With the Decky Loader plugin Powertools you can customize this threshold. I use my Deck as my only PC for work, and have the threshold set to 70%.
For video watching, I can't imagine having any issues! If you have the OLED model (I think), you can even get Wake on WLAN to work if you plan to store it out of view (although that does feel a bit unfortunate for the poor guy, it has such a nice screen...)
So it does charge above 90% when docked, but does not actually use the battery above that? Because I definitely see the battery charging when I have my SteamDeck OLED docked, would be nice to change that though, I guess I need to look into those plugins.
IIRC the stock behavior is to switch to AC at every charge level, but after 90% charging very slowly to 100 and then doing until it falls below 90 again which it would take a long time to do while still powered.
I worded that initial description pretty poorly, given the default behavior is that it always uses AC power if it's connected to AC.
Thankfully, with that Powertools plugin you will get to see exactly what the Deck is doing in terms of power and disable even that slow charge above 90% (which I have done), or even force the battery to charge at full rates above 90, should you need to prepare for a trip or something... Give it a try.
I installed it and was not quite sure what option means what, then found this tidbit on the git pages of the plugin:
The PowerTools has an important limitation over the Steam Deck firmware version, though: it only works while the screen is on.
https://git.ngni.us/NG-SD-Plugins/PowerTools/wiki/FAQ
So unless I misunderstand this I am not sure this is useful when docked since the screen is off, unless in Desktop mode where I am also not sure if this plugin would actually be active?
It would work in desktop mode. All Decky plugins do, because Decky itself sets up system level hooks for the plugins. You can also access your Decky plugins by launching Steam in Big Picture Mode while in desktop mode.
But yes, the custom limiter would not trigger if the battery level crosses up past the threshold. It would continued to charge untill the stock behavior of tapering off past 90%.
It would continue to limit your charge if you were above the threshold before the Deck goes to sleep. It would also continue to "idle" the battery of you force it to idle regardless of the charge level. It's the custom charge threshold limit that won't trigger if the Deck goes to sleep while still under it.
I'm going to dump a walk of text trying to describe this with an example because I don't trust my ability to explain this any better otherwise— Realistically, if you, say, set the threshold to 60%. Watch a few shows with it plugged in until it ticks up to 60% and then go about your business, letting it go to sleep, it would not continue to charge your battery. A couple of days later you might return to the Deck at 50% charge or something, even though it is plugged in. And then it would start charging again once you wake it up. Assuming you keep it awake long enough to get it to 60% again. Surely with an hour of tv a week it'll cost under that 60% mark despite the limitations!
OR, you can just not bother with the limiter at all. Force the battery to be idle all the time. You intend to only use this Deck docked, unlike me or Stampela from the comments, you don't need to unplug the Deck and play a few games on battery.
Thanks for taking time to write this, I think I got it now!
I see, thanks for the tip, I already got Decky on it so I'll check out that plugin.