Valve open source the Steam Machine e-ink screen so you can make your own
Valve has released the design for the Steam Machine's e-ink display as open source, allowing anyone to create their own version of the screen.
Background
- Valve is the company behind Steam, the dominant PC gaming store, and Steam Deck, a popular handheld gaming PC. A "Steam Machine" was Valve's earlier (2015) attempt at a living-room console — a small form-factor PC running SteamOS — that was widely considered a commercial flop.
- E-ink (or electronic ink) screens are low-power, paper-like displays used in e-readers like Kindles; they consume no power to hold a static image, only to change it. This makes them ideal for secondary displays that show logos, album art, or system info without draining battery.
- By "open sourcing" the design files (schematics, firmware, hardware specs) for this e-ink screen, Valve is releasing it under a permissive license. Anyone can now manufacture or hack their own version — a move that aligns with Valve's pattern of building reference hardware for SteamOS and letting the community/industry run with it.