New Valve Steam Deck project transforms gaming handheld into quasi-home console

A project on GitHub has reimagined the Steam Deck as a headless system. Plenty of shell mods for the Steam Deck already exist for those who want to add a bit more colour to their Steam Deck or give it a translucent look. The so-called Steam Brick goes much further in the name of portability.

Specifically, the Steam Brick does away with the Steam Deck's display, built-in controllers and other hardware to deliver much of the handheld's core functionality within a substantially smaller housing. For context, the original Steam Deck measures 298 x 117 x 49 mm and weighs 640 g. While not the largest of handhelds, the Steam Brick's creators considered the Steam Deck too large for travel:

...I found myself leaving it behind more often than not, as it wouldn't fit in my backpack, took up a huge amount of carry-on space, and was a hassle to bring down from the overhead compartment when I wanted to use it. When I did use the Deck, it was either plugged in to AR Glasses or plugged in to a TV.

By removing all unnecessary components and adding a 3D-printed shell, the Steam Brick drops the Steam Deck's footprint to 193.5 x 126.5 x 21 mm and 474 g. In other words, the Steam Brick is over 100 mm narrower and 166 g lighter than the Steam Deck, while also being about half as thick. Height has grown by about 8% and 9.5 mm, though.

In the ensuing GitHub post, the Steam Brick's creators explain that they use the Steam Brick with an 8BitDo Pro 2 or SN30 Pro controller and a pair of Xreal Air 2 Pro (curr. $399 on Amazon) AR glasses. Incidentally, the Steam Brick could serve as a quasi-home console too, which Valve could be developing itself under the codename 'Fremont'. Please see the Steam Brick GitHub page for links to how to build a Steam Brick yourself and its associated STL files.