This has been possible via the BIOS for a while now, but it's long overdue at the OS level. I love that Value keeps adding little QoL improvements to the steam deck, it's turned out to be one of the best pieces of tech I've ever bought.
this post was submitted on 09 May 2025
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Steam Deck
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It’s so weird that it doesn’t have it because both my kubuntu and endeavorOS installs have it by default. Like that’s a basic feature
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I do hope they focus a bit on the UI going forward - we've noticed a lot of silly little bugs while either using the Steam Deck controls or a controller.
A little hard to close a window without focus when using a controller....
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Got my hopes up there might be some sleep limit too. Would much prefer if it shuts down/hibernated after being asleep for more than 26 hours (or past a certain battery level)
I personally wouldn't want that, at least not if it's on a game.
Hibernate would be great as it's a slightly longer restore, but should work the same (if you are willing g to sacrifice the disk space)
Being able to pick up the deck and know it will have battery left would be really nice. It drains pretty fast in sleep mode.
It can’t dump a save state to disk? I guess that would be difficult on a normal OS.
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What do people set it to?
Default limit when toggled on is 80%, which generally seems like a good middle ground between usability and battery life. You can also raise the limit higher if you want more battery, or lower if you want to preserve the battery life better.
I thought the steam deck already had this. Admittedly, I’ve only had mine for about a month, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it charge to 100%. I think 95% was the highest I’ve seen. It seemed like it had something similar to smart charge like Windows has.
When it charges up all the way, it stops charging and just does passthrough power instead. You can then see the battery % slowly drop over time, which is probably why you were seeing stuff like 95%
You shouldn't see the battery drop if it is not using the battery, which is what pass through would suggest.
Not quite - batteries have something called self-discharge, which happens faster at higher temps. If you're actively using the deck, it can get warm which speeds up this process. It's not fast, but it's absolutely possible to see depending on how long you leave the deck docked
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On my devices where it’s available I usually set it to 80-85%.
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Finally!!
Still can’t believe some phones don’t have this
I think it comes down to driver support. It’s not that the hardware can’t do this, but rather it’s that you need to pass the option to control it all the way up from the lowest levels of the system eventually into user space where you can select an option in settings.
That, and it’s just not the first priority on devices that are generally low-margin.
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I really appreciate this one. Have done this on my other devices too, and while it does cut battery life by a little, your battery health will remain high for considerably longer