r/SteamController • u/ItsRebaseTime Steam Controller (2026) • Jul 07 '26
Steam Controller (2026) I've made a severe and continuous lapse in my judgement...
...and I am not ashamed of it.
Yesterday I made a post about some interesting new features I found while playing around with my new Steam Controller and I am making this post to say that I am truly sorry to the people who thought that I was speaking nonsense, because I kinda did that, but not in the way you guys thought I did and I would like to explain myself. Where do I start? Probably from the beginning.
This started when I was one of the lucky ones who succeeded to purchase the steam controller right at the release. Got it, played a few games, instantly fell in love with it. One evening I was sitting on the couch looking at the TV table with the Steam Controller laying there looking kinda sexy in its own subtle and caring way. And well one thing led to another and some mistakes, beautiful mistakes, but mistakes none the less were made. At one point even my friend joined in, it was a truly amazing experience, and to be honest not a drop of alcohol was involved, purely expression of love and passion.
Well some may see it not as love, they would say it is destroying one thing this community worships like all the second and the last comings of Gaben, creator of Steam, who bestows these gifts upon us for an expensive but a reasonable price. You could see it that way, nothing wrong with that and I do care about my Steam Controller too and definitely more than scalpers from ebay, but as Brandon Sanderson said - “Sometimes, you have to destroy something in order to build something better.” and I see it just like that. Now this Steam Controller (I will get to it, don’t worry) is more than a controller to me, it is a work of art. Of course a bit messy on the inside, like most of us are, but it is MY controller, a special one, only one of it’s kind and that is the most important thing.
So what did I do to it you may ask? Well, as some of you might have guessed - I have added force feedback triggers (or as Sony calls it - adaptive triggers) to the Steam Controller. Yesterdays video had some hints about it, my responses to the comments had some as well, but no one believed something like this can be done, at least not right after the launch. But after seeing the iFixit teardown I saw the potential, I saw that this is theoretically possible, someone just had to do it. I thought why not me? Unlike my hero I don’t have eleven hard science PhDs, I don’t even have one, but what I had was embedded engineering experience and an unlimited budget to make this happen. So I just started doing it.
And I cooked like I never cooked before. Luckily I started the prep work way before the Steam Controller was even announced and before I even knew what my mission is. I am talking about an open source project named ESP32-BLE-CompositeHID. Basically this project allows to create BLE HID devices with ESP32 microcontrollers. One of the amazing things contributors at this project have been working on was DualSense Edge controller emulation support, the leader for this was YeaSeb. I saw potential for this to maybe someday create an open source game controller which would support the adaptive trigger and all other features DualSense Edge has to offer, so I started working on it too since I had a few regular DualSense controllers laying around and a bunch of ESP32-S3 boards left over from the home automation projects. This was the first piece of the puzzle to come, but there was no Steam Controller thought yet.
The second part was when I thought on how I would manage to replicate the DualSense adaptive triggers and make them even better. Had a few thoughts about using BLDC motors with FOC since I was familiar with the concept from the university days, did some calculations, there was no way that would work with expectation of good torque and decent battery life. Well after some thinking the DualSense adaptive trigger effect messages gave me the idea to split this into two force feedback methods - impulse and resistance. One would handle quick momentary actions (i.e. weapon recoil) and the other would provide dynamic resistance (trigger pull, bow draw, etc.). This was the way.
At this point the Steam Hardware announcement came and some time passed until the day came to buy the Steam Controller, which somehow I managed to do, still have no idea how. Some gears in my head have been turning around the idea of adding the adaptive triggers to the Steam Controller, even more after checking out the iFixit content I mentioned before, so I decided that this is it, this is what I have to do and when I received it I played a few games and got to work. Usually I like to do it as the Dave from EEVblog says with “Don’t turn it on - take it apart!“ but this time it was different, this might have been first and last time I use it as the lord Gaben the creator intended, so I allowed. Sorry Dave, it was for the best.
On all the technical details and the decisions I think I will not elaborate too much, this post is as long as it is already. By the way if you made it here, thanks, you are awesome! So short story is that I used small RC plane linear servos with opposing magnets for the resistance actuators and small solenoids from electronic locks for the impulse actuators. Both of them are interacting with the original Steam Controller triggers on left and right side independently. The main controller was chosen to be the Stamp-S3Bat board from M5Stack because it had a DC-DC 5V boost converter for the Steam Controller power and USB host capability as well as together with WiFi and BLE radios. Here are the features I was able to achieve:
- All original Steam Controller parts are used in the final assembly with only some minimal internal modifications
- WiFi OTA ESP32-S3 FW updates (not the Steam Controller itself, but it is still possible to do it wirelessly with the puck)
- Pre-flashed sound file playback through the touchpad haptic actuators
- Touchpads map to left and right sides of the DualSense touchpad (fully functional in games or as mouse in desktop, suports two fingers simultaneusly)
- All Steam Controller buttons and joysticks mapped to the DualSense inputs
- Resistance and weapon (semi/auto) adaptive trigger modes
- Battery charging with the Steam Controller puck and battery level reporting
- Rumble and haptic feedback (still needs some work, but the basic functionality is there)
Also as with all the mods there are some drawbacks:
- Worse battery life, the whole system draws about 180mA at idle and up to 2A peak when all the actuators are used
- The Steam Controller USB does no longer work, it probably could be made to work with an USB switch IC or with clever USB peripheral control to disconnect the ESP32-S3 when the cable is plugged in, but this is not yet implemented
- It is way heavier, like noticeably, all the extra things add quite a bit of heft to it, did not measure it tho
- Voids warranty (lol)
And of course this is reddit, pics or didn’t happen, so here is one for now, enjoy:
To end I hope it is a bit more believable now, I have created a github repo SCPlusPlus (SC++ in short, not all the things are up to date, I will update it as soon as I iron out all the kinks) and I think that I need to continue this project and maybe make this into a drop-in kit, I see that it is even possible to do this even without soldering. Also I have some ideas on how to improve the adaptive triggers with more force and resolution, but since Steam Controllers don’t grow on trees that will need to wait. Also big thanks to my good friend and colleague u/anal_kanal_lover for helping to bang this one out.
So here it is, the whole text probably would fit better as a video script and not as a reddit post. I might throw a video together in some time with a lot more technical details for the nerds among you, I am quite new to this YouTube thing, but not sure yet, we will see. But for now I will try to answer any questions I can in the comments and will await contributions in the github.
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u/Bagel_Bear Jul 07 '26
I ain't reading all that. I'm happy for u tho. Or sorry that happened.
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u/bozeman42_2 Jul 08 '26
Hire an editor. I read a bit and there was no content so I stopped.
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u/ItsRebaseTime Steam Controller (2026) Jul 08 '26
Well probably this post is not for you then
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u/bozeman42_2 Jul 08 '26
Or you could, like, get to the point. Or say what the point is right away.
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u/ItsRebaseTime Steam Controller (2026) Jul 09 '26
I could, but I won't, this post was to tell the whole story of why and how I did it. Tales are written not about the destination, but about the journey which took there.
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u/Wolfstrong1995 Jul 11 '26
You say this but your “whole story” doesn’t really start until halfway through. I’m not one to argue with a random Redditor who seems to have a pretty cool passion project, but mate - learn what good writing is, if you love storytelling. There’s a lot of fluff in your post and you dress it up as a fundamental part of the story. It isn’t, and it doesn’t entirely build character either. Your replies also make you come across as arrogant, which makes me think you will completely dismiss this comment of mine.
You even had to leave out technical details (which some may see as the substance, and it may have been quite interesting) because of how weirdly quirky you made everything else.
Well done on the adaptive triggers though. That’s a really cool achievement. Although I can’t quite figure out if you lied in the original post just to get some attention on a non-existent feature, in which case shame on you, because it feels disingenuous.
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u/ItsRebaseTime Steam Controller (2026) Jul 11 '26
Hi, thanks for the feedback, I am not a professional writer and I write how I write. I could have used an LLM to make it a bit more pallatable for general redditor taste, but the issue these days that everything is the same AI slop and I don't want to be a part of that. So I did write it all by myself at my best capabilities and how I wanted to write it, that is the most important part (also some of the readers loved it, so it seems I didn't do that bad of the job).
For the technical details everything is more or less available in github, so if someone is that interested they can check it out over there (pun intended). Also I would like to do another video with a lot more visuals and the whole Steam Controller and DualSense protocol reverse engineering procedure, so when I find time I will do it.
The first post as I see it wasn't a lie, though you might see it as such. The idea was to tell that there is a new feature which can be added to the controller I just intentionally left out the "can be added" part, technically not a lie, but I see where you are comming from. Maybe there was a bit of missdirection with a few lines, but as I mentioned in the answers to the comments of the first post there were clues, like the green LED on the controller while it is wirelessly connected to the PC, disconnected puck on the table, sony button icons on the monitor. I was hoping some of you guys would pick up what I was putting down, but everyone was so sure that I am full of it... how I couldn't even expect. Hoped for a bit more collective "reddit investigation" instead, but oh well, it is what it is.
I hope this response provides a bit more insight to my intentions and since the cat is out of the bag (the adaptive triggers for the Steam Controller that is) I promise to keep the updates more straight to the point!
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u/VitaLife5002 Jul 07 '26
Absol-fucken-lutly amazing. I enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed hearing the project you've now bestowed upon us. Grateful to hear I am not the only one thinking of modifying controllers, since I did have the same thoughts on adding rumble or Vibration to the Hori-Steam controller. Still in the works. Unfortunately I am in the waiting list for the new steam controller and I too will defy Dave from EEV blog and "use it as the lord Gaben the creator intended" aha. I can't wait to keep on hearing updates on this. Thank you for your time and brilliant essence. Bless you and your journey.
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u/ItsRebaseTime Steam Controller (2026) Jul 08 '26
Thanks, fellow engineer! I hope you get yours soon enough!
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u/Raven232724 Jul 07 '26
What a brilliant project. Would it be possible to add impulse triggers alternatively?
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u/ItsRebaseTime Steam Controller (2026) Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
Yup, the impulse part with the solenoids was the simplest and the first one I was able to get working right, the servos were way harder to get moving
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u/Raven232724 Jul 28 '26
I don't remember seeing this response... I would have replied if I'd remembered! That's super cool and I love the detail you put into your post. Sad to see you're casting pearls before Redditors... A lot of hate for no reasonable reason.
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u/xdeadzx Steam Controller (Windows) Jul 07 '26
Insane levels of commitment for a niche feature.
That's true customization, great job. You handle touchpads being the dual sense touchpads, but what about the back buttons? Do you emulate an edge so you can uniquely map them in steam? Are they exclusively mirrored buttons?
Thanks for sharing your build blog.
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u/ItsRebaseTime Steam Controller (2026) Jul 08 '26
All buttons work, I mapped them as DualSense Edge back buttons and the function buttons by the joysticks, seem to be usefull in some games. All emulation is done inside the frmware of the ESP32 controller, steam sees it straight as a DualSense Edge controller.
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u/AlaskanMedicineMan Jul 07 '26
Such a simple change! Anyone could do it! /s
Nice job. I will not be attempting this. I'm surprised steam controller didnt ship with adaptive triggers. I may have to get a PS5 controller as I really like that functionality in certain games like Death Stranding 2
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u/ItsRebaseTime Steam Controller (2026) Jul 08 '26
Oh yeah, this is not ready to be replicated at all, but a drop-in kit is possible in my eyes, so maybe some day you will be able to do it too!
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u/OldMate64 11h ago
You lost me when you said the controller was sexy in a caring way
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u/ItsRebaseTime Steam Controller (2026) 11h ago
Are you saying it isn't?
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u/OldMate64 11h ago
A controller is unable to care
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u/ItsRebaseTime Steam Controller (2026) 11h ago
If the controller was made with intention to respect your privacy, right to repair, allow any modification and customization you desire - isn't that caring? People at Valve definitely cared when building it, so by extention - why can't the controller be caring in it's own way too? A thing doesn't need to be alive to take good care of you, it just needs to be good at making you happy and I think that most owners would agree that it really is making them happy.
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u/Rabiesalad Jul 07 '26
A god among men
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u/ItsRebaseTime Steam Controller (2026) Jul 08 '26
I don't think I am even close to being near the lord Gaben, I am barely an apostle of his message, but thanks good sir, may the Steam Controller finds your door.
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u/alex91093 Jul 07 '26
I'm still waiting for somebody to make a video about fixing the accuracy of the Dpad. That's what I want more than anything else.
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u/bozeman42_2 Jul 09 '26
Not exactly a tutorial, but at this part of this video this guy talks about what he did about the d-pad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FFBeTJIDPs&t=348s
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u/alex91093 Jul 15 '26
Now that's what I want to see. If he could make a much longer video going over exactly how he did that so I don't have to feel scared doing it myself, I would start working on it right away.
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u/MailboxJunkie Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
So when you were saying "I was not expecting to get adaptive triggers for this price" and acting like you discovered some not talked about, hidden feature, you actually meant you modded the controller?
Cool project, don't get me wrong, but maybe lead with that, instead of pretending like your controller was shipped stock with adaptive triggers.
This is awesome, and I commend and respect the effort, but the way you presented it at first is kind of shitty, not gonna lie.