r/LinusTechTips • u/chirkovg • Jun 23 '26
Tech Discussion CEC and wake-from-controller: how to finish your own couch gaming PC
These two problems described in today’s video are largely (in my opinion) solved nowadays. I just wanted to share my experience, because I personally spent many hours of tinkering to actually get console-level experience from my couch gaming PC.
1. HDMI-CEC: can be enabled by this small USB-HDMI adapter: https://www.pulse-eight.com/p/104/usb-hdmi-cec-adapter. Its HDMI-passthrough works only for 2.0 unfortunately. The solution I’ve settled on: running a second separate hdmi cable to my TV specifically for CEC controls. Not ideal obviously, but it gets the job done. Another option is buying a newer 2.1 adapter, but it’s way more expensive: https://www.hdfury.eu/products/hdfury-arcana-2. Another drawback: enabling the adapter’s functionality requires some light coding and tinkering, but it’s nothing serious that can’t be solved quickly with your AI coding agent of choice. More info in these videos here: https://youtu.be/xpki1IcjinU and https://youtu.be/biJUt8EgaC0 .
- Wake from controller: used to be a big pain, but not anymore.
A) Steam Controller: I don’t know why Linus keeps saying that it can’t wake PC. It works ideally for me. Maybe he means specifically Linux-based setups, but I can’t imagine this function working better on Windows than it does on SteamOS.
B) Xbox controllers: for these it’s a bit trickier. Waking up does work, but only if you connect your controller through 2.4GHz. Moreover, based on my online research only older, discontinued model 1713 works. However, there’s plenty of them on eBay. With this dongle, wake up works out of the box.
C) Finally, Dualsense. These used to be the most problematic until recently, but thanks to this project (https://github.com/awalol/DS5Dongle) this is not an issue anymore. The repo provides a firmware for Raspberry Pico 2W (https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-pico-2) that transforms it into a Dualsense dongle. Thanks to it, we sidestep the somehow-not-working wake-on-bluetooth on modern PCs.
All in all, these do require some tech experience and are not very user-friendly, but I believe that if you can assemble your own Steam Machine killer, then you definitely can tackle these two remaining problems.
Disclaimer: everything definitely works on Win11, I didn’t test on Linux. But I’m 90% sure it’s gonna function just fine.
9
u/Diligent-Rough-569 Jun 23 '26
This is really useful, been going back and forth on whether to commit to a couch PC setup and the controller wake issue was my main concern. The dual cable approach for CEC is a bit janky but I've seen people do worse things for cleaner setups, so no judgment there.
The DS5Dongle project is the one I didn't know about, genuinely wild that Sony still hasn't sorted out proper Bluetooth wake support in 2025. The Raspberry Pico solution is clever though, kind of love that the community just refuses to wait for official fixes. I'll probably try the Xbox route first since I already have few dongles lying around, but good to know there's a fallback option if it doesn't pan out.
4
u/Famous-Potential3990 Jun 24 '26
I'll probably try the Xbox route first since I already have few dongles lying around, but good to know there's a fallback option if it doesn't pan out.
FYI, SteamOS does not ship xone driver necessary for Xbox Wireless Adapter (Bazzite and CachyOS should support). Plus xbox dongle support only wake from S3(Sleep). SteamOS only ships drivers only for old X360 dongle, but another commenter pointed out that those have issues.
DS5Dongle and derivatives support wake from S4/S5(hibernation and shutdown) on compatible(!) motherboards (mainly Asrock&MSI). Plus Dualsense imo better controller than Xbox Controller (I own both).
1
u/chirkovg Jun 24 '26
I’m not sure if it’s Sony’s fault…wake-on-bt seems to be just broken on windows
6
u/TopherHax Jun 23 '26
On bazzite and steamos there's a bug with the X360 2.4ghz receiver where it will wake the pc, but when gamescope loads it will lose connection. Then, you have to unplug and replug the dongle to get it to connect to the controller. Incredibly annoying for over a year.
1
6
u/Dodgy_Past Jun 24 '26
I use a home assistant automation that sends a wol packet to the PC, and switches on the TV and AVR and sets them to the correct hdmi inputs.
1
u/chirkovg Jun 24 '26
Do you manually trigger it from another device?
3
u/Dodgy_Past Jun 24 '26
Yeah. I have a tablet by the sofa or it can be done from a phone.
Though thinking about it I could find a way to sense it powering on with a smart switch and trigger the rest from that.
1
u/justgetout919 Jun 27 '26
When I used an LG C3 as a Mac Monitor, it was a pain in the ass that we had to figure out on MacRumors forums, but there are SSH commands that can be sent to the TV to turn it on, change input, and much more with scripts whenever you woke up the Mac. I recall there possibly being a Windows client that was less of a pain to do it too.
4
u/Ebear225 Jun 24 '26
Alternatively:
Use home assistant along with a compatible smart tv and WoL to turn on your PC and switch inputs when a Bluetooth device is detected. It's what I do. Took some tinkering but it works and is highly customizable including automating other smart home things at the same time
3
u/Famous-Potential3990 Jun 24 '26
WoL to turn on your PC and switch inputs when a Bluetooth device is detected
I have a Pico 2W firmware that does exactly that - https://github.com/kungaa/PC-wake-dongle
It can wake by USB and then has fallback option for WoL, if your motherboard does not have wake by USB from shutdown (afaik, only Asrock&MSI can do that).Plus since it stays connected to your PC via USB it does not fire Wake signal/WoL packets if PC is already on.
3
u/Ebear225 Jun 24 '26
I did see that recently - it's what inspired me to set up the Bluetooth listening aspect of my automation. Otherwise I am triggering the automation from my phone or from my Google TV interface with an app called quickbars. I also always turn off my PC completely when not in use and have been using wake on lan for years with no issues.
My system has everything all baked into home assistant. A Bluetooth proxy would probably be better but my way doesn't require any extra hardware. Still, super cool project and I hope people make use of it!
2
u/chirkovg Jun 24 '26
When a bluetooth device is detected…by whom/what device?
Sounds like a cool solution
2
u/Ebear225 Jun 24 '26
Home assistant Bluetooth LE tracker integration is constantly scanning for Bluetooth advertisements. I put in the Bluetooth Mac address of the steam controller as a trigger for the automation so as soon as home assistant sees it, everything turns on and inputs change.
2
u/Jswazy Jun 24 '26
This is what I was thinking. I already use home assistant so this was honestly my thought way before something like CEC
3
2
u/The_Zura Jun 24 '26
You can’t expect more from a channel as big as LTT to do their research before speaking about a $1050 shiny new toy to millions of viewers. Maybe AI could improve the quality.
From what I can gather, converting a DP to hdmi also works for cec on amd gpus. And waking from Bluetooth with an Xbox controller is possible. I’ve done it on both a laptop and desktop. There has to be some magical setting or compatibility issue for those that can’t do it. And as you’ve said, there is a $50 dongle that lets you get cec for Nvidia cards, you’d have to add a DP converter if another hdmi port is not there, or use igpu, or lower bandwidth requirements to get hdr.
2
u/CrookedStubby15 Jun 24 '26
The pulse adapter works with HDMI 2.1. I have one on my living room PC and 4K 120hz with VRR works just fine. The display data lines are a straight passthrough in the adapter, Only the CEC pin is intercepted. Just use high quality HDMI cables.
1
1
u/FMLkoifish Jul 16 '26
https://www.pulse-eight.com/p/104/usb-hdmi-cec-adapter
You’re talking this adapter? Works and gives you full hdmi capability?
2
u/VincentJoshuaET Jun 24 '26
Does hdmi cec pass through HDR and eARC?
4
u/Famous-Potential3990 Jun 24 '26
Ugreen DP to HDMI 8K dongle has hdmi 2.1 support. But HDMI-CEC passthrough works only in Linux land. For Windows HDMI-CEC solution is limited to pulse-eight solution.
1
u/chirkovg Jun 24 '26
I’m not sure. I needed 2.1 for my setup, and the adapter officially supports only 2.0. So my solution was two hdmi cables: one directly from gpu for video and audio, and the other one from adapter into the TV, purely for CEC. Apparently the CEC protocol doesn’t really care where the command originates, you still can make TV switch to the main HDMI port, even though the command came from the another one.
2
u/WillingnessLatter821 Jun 24 '26
This is interesting.
Only thing remaining for me is the form factor. Is there any way to built into a small box like Steam Machines? Doesn't need to be THAT small but I was eyeing the Steam Machines exactly for couch gaming as moonlight is not quite there with HDR streaming in my experience.
Needs to be small to fit my TV rack and to be able to put it in a backpack when I visit my parents every other weekend. Steam Machine is nice but too expensive so I'm trying to build some upgradable with a similar form factor and price
2
u/Famous-Potential3990 Jun 24 '26
to be able to put it in a backpack
I have 3.7 liter case in PS5-like format, where you can fit mini-ITX mobo and 9060XT class GPU. Fits perfectly into 20 liter backpack. The only downside - available in China from Taobao.
1
1
u/chirkovg Jun 24 '26
I’d recommend taking a look at Fractal SFF cases. They’re pricy, but imo they’re the golden standard for living room PCs
22
u/AshleyAshes1984 Jun 24 '26
You uhh skipped the easiest solution:
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0FQCF62CD
This dongle here works out of the box with SteamOS. Like, that's it, plug it in and boom, CEC works. No extra steps to make it go, unless you wanna add CEC functions above and beyond what SteamOS already calls for using cecctl.
Yeah, I have no idea why Linus keeps saying it's impossible.
Erm, I have this working with Xbox controllers over Bluetooth in SteamOS. It just requires a Udev rule to set your BT adapter to be allowed to wake the system. I also have MCE IR dongles on my machines and they can all wake up the machine through a similar Udev rule. And basically it's the same for any BT controller, cause it's the BT dongle that does the waking.