Steam Link is a hardware and software product developed by

Valve Corporation Valve Corporation, also known as Valve Software, is an American video game developer, video game publisher, publisher, and digital distribution company headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. It is the developer of the software distribution pl ...

for streaming

Steam Steam is water vapor, often mixed with air or an aerosol of liquid water droplets. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. Saturated or superheated steam is inv ...

content from a personal computer or Steam Machine wirelessly to a mobile device or other monitor. Steam Link was originally released as a hardware device alongside the debut of Steam Machines in November 2015. Valve discontinued the Steam Link hardware device in November 2018, in favor of supporting its software-based Steam Link application for mobile devices and smart televisions, as well as providing Steam Link as a software package for the

Raspberry Pi Raspberry Pi ( ) is a series of small single-board computers (SBCs) developed in the United Kingdom by the Raspberry Pi Foundation in collaboration with Broadcom Inc., Broadcom. To commercialize the product and support its growing demand, the ...

microcomputer.

Functionality

Steam Link, whether in hardware or software form, supports the streaming of content from a personal computer running

to the video device (a connected television or monitor for the hardware unit, the mobile device's screen for the software version). In this setup, the device acting as the Steam Link (the hardware unit or the mobile device in software form) enables a game controller connected to it to be used to control the game over the connection to the home computer. Prior to March 2019, both the personal computer and the Steam Link hardware device or mobile device using Steam Link software had to be on the same internal network. With an update in March 2019, Valve introduced the Steam Link Anywhere update that allows one to stream across the internet, though the performance of the streaming will be strongly affected by the bandwidth and latency between the personal computer and device with Steam Link.

Hardware

Steam Link is a stand-alone hardware device to enable streaming of

content from a personal computer or a Steam Machine wirelessly to a television set, including integration of

Steam Controller The Steam Controller is a discontinued game controller developed by Valve for use with personal computers, running Steam on Windows, macOS, Linux, smartphones or SteamOS. The controller was designed not only for games developed for controller u ...

gamepad. The device was released along with the debut of Steam Machines in November 2015. Valve quietly discontinued the Steam Link in November 2018, in favor of supporting its software-based Steam Link application for mobile devices, smart televisions, and a software package for the Raspberry Pi. Steam Link is listed as having the following technical specifications: * Wired 100 Mbit/s Fast Ethernet and Wireless 802.11ac 2×2 (MIMO) * 3× USB 2.0 ports * Bluetooth 4.0 *

HDMI High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary digital interface used to transmit high-quality video and audio signals between devices. It is commonly used to connect devices such as televisions, computer monitors, projectors, gam ...

out * Support for the following control peripherals: Steam Controller, DualShock 4, Xbox One or 360 Wired Controller, Xbox 360 Wireless Controller for Windows, Logitech Wireless Gamepad F710, or keyboard and mouse A tear-down revealed the following specific hardware parts: * Marvell DE3005-A1 CPU * Marvell WiFi chip 88W8897 * Vivante GC1000 GPU The Steam Link comes with power adapters for various countries.

Software (hardware)

Operating system

The Steam Link uses a modified version of

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

based on version 3.8 of the

Linux kernel The Linux kernel is a Free and open-source software, free and open source Unix-like kernel (operating system), kernel that is used in many computer systems worldwide. The kernel was created by Linus Torvalds in 1991 and was soon adopted as the k ...

. It is possible to enable

root In vascular plants, the roots are the plant organ, organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often bel ...

SSH access to the system.

SDK

One month after release, support was added to the Steam Link to have Steam Link apps, which can be created using an SDK. A number of such apps have been created, such as apps for accessing

Kodi Kodi may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * KODI, a radio station in Cody, Wyoming, USA * Kodi (film), ''Kodi'' (film), India, 2016 * Kodi, a dog in the 2004 film ''Balto III: Wings of Change'' Other uses * Kodi (software), an open sour ...

, but no database or store for them exists as of November 2017.

Games and applications

Any Steam game that can run on the host computer can be streamed to the Steam Link. On

host it is also possible to stream a Windows game using the Proton beta (released August 2018). Non-Steam games can be played as well.

Discontinuation

Valve announced in November 2018 that they are no longer manufacturing the Steam Link hardware device, and will sell off the remaining stock. Valve will continue to support software and device updates to existing Steam Link hardware, but are directing users towards the mobile app to provide the same functionality.

Software (application)

In May 2018, Valve announced it would release the Steam Link application for

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

, Android, tvOS, and Android TV devices that will allow users to play streaming games to these devices, without the need for the Link hardware. However,

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

rejected the application from its App Store because of "business conflicts with app guidelines". The app was eventually released on iOS in May 2019. In December 2018, Valve released a

version of the Steam Link software for

ARM architecture ARM (stylised in lowercase as arm, formerly an acronym for Advanced RISC Machines and originally Acorn RISC Machine) is a family of reduced instruction set computer, RISC instruction set architectures (ISAs) for central processing unit, com ...

, targeting Raspberry Pi 3, 3 B+, and 4. In March 2021, Valve released the app for

x86-64 x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit extension of the x86 instruction set architecture, instruction set. It was announced in 1999 and first available in the AMD Opteron family in 2003. It introduces two new ope ...

Linux platforms and

macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

. Steam Link had been released on Samsung smart TVs in 2018. However, with the introduction of Samsung's Gaming Hub across its devices, Samsung discontinued the app in November 2023.

Virtual reality

On November 30, 2023, Valve released the Steam Link client for

Meta Quest The Meta Quest, initially the Oculus Quest until August 2022, is a line of virtual reality headsets with augmented reality capabilities developed by Reality Labs, a division of Meta. The first-generation Oculus Quest was developed by Oculus (the ...

, compatible with Meta Quest 2 and newer, which allows streaming content from a PC running

SteamVR Steam is a digital distribution service and storefront developed by Valve Corporation, Valve. It was launched as a software client in September 2003 to provide video game updates automatically for Valve's games and expanded to distributing thir ...

to the devices over a local Wi-Fi network. On Meta Quest Pro, eye and facial tracking data can also be transmitted to VR software using OSC. The software competes primarily with the Meta Quest "Air Link" feature, and third-party app

Virtual Desktop In computing, a virtual desktop is a term used with respect to user interfaces, usually within the WIMP (computing), WIMP paradigm, to describe ways in which the virtual space of a computer's desktop environment is expanded beyond the physical ...

References

External links

* {{Video game streaming services Products introduced in 2015 Link Cloud gaming TvOS software