Unboxing a Steam Link 11 years later.
And a Steam Controller too.
Written by Gardiner Bryant.
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Here's something cool.
My friend Peter gave me a
Steam Link and a Steam Controller.
He had intended to use them to stream
games from his office
PC to his living room TV,
and then never got around to it.
This was back when Valve discontinued
them both, and they were offering a steep
discount to clear their inventory.
The sale was in 2018, so these devices
have sat unopened on his shelf for the
better part of a decade.
With that being the case and considering
the new upcoming Steam hardware,
I figured now would be a great time to
open these up and give them a spin.
The Steam Controller.
Let's start with the Steam Controller.
I've already got two of them in my
possession, but I wanted to document the
unboxing process here in 2026.
The sticker holding the
outer sleeve in place was aged.
This had grown stubborn.
Pulling it up felt like sacrilege, even
though I don't really
find new old stock that holy.
I removed the outer
sheath and set it aside.
Folding open the box, I was greeted with
a factory fresh
original steam controller.
There are a few things
to note with this device.
Despite it being new old stock and
totally unopened, there
was some evidence of wear.
Not from use, mind you, but from living
in a box without a protective bag.
Also from age.
The soft rubber coating on the one analog
stick is very clearly
starting to decroad.
This is just what rubber does over time.
I tried to get a good photo of this, but
it doesn't photograph well.
My friend Peter has moved at least once
since acquiring these devices,
and that means that the controller has
bumped up against the
inner packaging while shipping.
And given the age of the box itself, the
inner coding has
started to degrade with time.
That's left to find dust
all over the controller.
And the controller has also left an
impression on the
inside of the box's lid, too.
The controller came with
some packed-in goodies.
A USB A to Micro B cable, a USB Micro B
to A adapter, a USB A
2.4 GHz wireless dongle,
and a pair of AA batteries.
These were all in factory fresh shape,
except for the batteries.
Those were labeled as good through March
of twenty twenty six.
Hey, what a coincidence.
But they were also corroded and leaking
inside their plastic packaging.
I genuinely didn't think batteries could
corrode unless they were in circuit.
So I guess you learn
something new every day, huh?
Like I said, though, the rest of the
accessories were great.
[Music]
Use with a PC
The Steam Controller is still
eminently usable on your PC.
I was expecting the gamepad would need a
firmware update when I
plugged it into my computer,
but it seems to be on the latest version
right out of the box.
It may come as a surprise to some, but
there's also a bespoke advanced
configuration screen
for the Steam Controller
in modern big picture mode.
It's pretty nifty to see.
You can calibrate the touch pads, the
joystick, and even the gyros.
You can enable gyro smoothing, you can
control the LED brightness,
the startup and
shutdown chirps, and more.
Big picture mode even offers a
pre-configured control
profile for Steam Controller 1.0.
None of that is a surprise to me though.
I am a controller nut and I still use my
existing Steam
Controllers with some regularity.
So let's move on to the Steam Link.
[Music]
The Steam Link.
I have zero
experience with the Steam Link.
That is to say, this is an entirely new
device to me, and I'm kind of excited.
Again, much like the Steam Controller,
the sticker that holds the outer sheath
in place was decidedly aged and crusty.
Removing it was pretty simple.
I just lifted up on the
unstuck part and it came right off.
Once I negotiated the sticker free, I
removed the sleeve and opened the box.
There sat a brand new
and unused Steam Link.
Cursory inspection revealed similar signs
of age as the Steam Controller.
Mostly the box's inner coating was
crumbling and it had left another fine
powder on the device.
There were a few scuffs on
the top of the link as well.
Pretty ugly, but I think a
little bit of elbow grease
should be able to redress that.
Pulling the egg carton-like cardboard
that secured the Steam Link
in place and setting it aside,
the box remained unexpectedly heavy.
And that's minus the weight of the
already hefty for its size device.
There were a few goodies underneath.
First, an HDMI cable,
about six feet in length.
Also included was a flat,
what appeared to be CAT5 cable.
It had no markings on the six foot cord.
And while stylish, I've
always found these flat cables
to be far less reliable
than their normal twisted pair sisters.
Finally, there was a power adapter,
rated for 5.1 volts and 2.5 amps,
with a 3.9 millimeter
barrel jack connector.
This accounted for their
remaining weight in the box.
And thankfully, the adapter
should be relatively simple
to replace if needs be in the future.
The link has a power adapter jack,
two Type A USB ports, an
RJ45 port, and an HDMI port.
On the right of the device, there's
another Type A port.
I wired everything up,
including an ethernet cable.
The link turned itself on
once connected to the mains.
It detected that a
firmware upgrade was available,
and it prompted me to install it.
I connected my new steam controller
via the provided USB cable
and confirmed the upgrade.
This process took a little while,
over three minutes to complete.
Once it was done, it found my PC,
which had steam open
and asked me to connect.
The link performed some network analysis
and determined that my
10 gigabit home network
would not suffice for
streaming in high quality,
but I insisted that high
quality mode be used anyway.
Since I was doing all of
this right here on my desk,
I watched as the link petitioned my PC
to jump into big picture mode.
Then I was controlling
the link on one monitor,
and it was forwarding all of
those inputs to my desktop.
There was the tiniest amount of lag
between input and
display through the link.
And I think that the majority of that
was actually due to my use
of the ATEM Mini Extreme ISO
to capture the HDMI signal from the link
and then split it off to my monitor.
The ATEM Mini Extreme ISO is
notoriously bad for gaming.
It has so much lag that
playing first person shooters
actually makes me nauseous.
Consequently, I played animal
well to try this out at first.
Using the steam
controller is not an ideal choice
by any means, but it is serviceable.
Then I swapped out the steam controller
for the Ghoulikit TT Max
using its included wireless adapter.
Connecting it was an absolute breeze.
Just plug the dongle into the
link and jump into the game,
simple and straightforward.
I was able to play
Spelunky, my go-to lag test app,
and it was actually pretty manageable.
There definitely was some lag,
but it was entirely playable.
Though I did lose multiple hit points
and later ended my run in
stage four of the jungle
because of the lag.
Not because I'm a bad gamer by any means.
Nope, I'm screwed.
I'm fricking screwed.
I can't believe I didn't get impaled.
We got the shotgun, guys.
Now, grab it.
Oh, man.
I was like, I know this is
gonna be the death of me.
I knew it.
I fricking knew it.
The fact is the link performed admirably
and it's still relevant
and capable hardware in 2026.
It's able to output a
1080p 60 Hertz signal,
and that's fine.
Now, there are better ways of doing this,
like getting a Raspberry Pi and
installing the native app,
or using an Nvidia Shield
or another Android device
with the Steam Link app.
These will all allow you to
stream higher quality gameplay
from your PC, but that's
neither here nor there.
Other things.
Now, I'm curious what other things
we might be able to do with the Link.
Some cursory searches
yielded promising results.
Valve commendably did
not lock this thing down.
You can get root shell access here,
but I haven't found a
practical use case for this.
I'd love any input you
have, if you have any.
Conclusion.
So what can we glean from
this unboxing experience?
Well, firstly, it was fun.
New old stock is always
such a trip down memory lane,
but also, and more importantly,
that these devices still work.
That's huge.
Over a decade since their introduction,
and over eight years
since they were retired,
Valve's maintained
compatibility with this hardware,
despite massive
infrastructural changes to Steam,
like a new big picture mode, new
streaming codecs, and more.
And I can't see these devices
falling out of support anytime soon.
I'm excited to see how
Valve's upcoming Steam machine,
Steam Frame, and the new
Steam Controller are received,
but also how they're supported
in the Steam ecosystem going forward.
You can find more articles just like this
over on The Bryant
Review, gardenerbryant.com.
Head over there, get
signed up, and become a member.
It's all greatly appreciated.