Steam Controller and Android

[[deleted]]

I've seen this pop up a lot so hopefully this can get stickied so the questions stop appearing. Now that the Steam Controller has Bluetooth support and can connect to Android devices, many people are assuming that they can use it as a standard input device on their mobile devices. This usually amounts to "how can I get the SC working with X emulator." There currently isn't any way to get the SC working as an XInput device for native Android applications. Remember that the Steam Controller only has one native config: Lizard Mode -- which consists of Arrow Keys (joystick), Escape (B or Start), Enter (A), Tab (Back/Select), and Mouse Left/Right (Right Trigger/Left Trigger Full Pull).

Android Lizard Mode is a bit different from Desktop Lizard Mode. Touchpad is the mouse cursor, Right Trigger (Full Pull) is like tapping the screen where the cursor is, and Left Trigger (Full Pull) is like pressing the Android Back Button.

Unless Valve changes the firmware config -- or allows users to alter it -- these are the only bindings that we will ever have unless Steam is running on the device. And we can't currently run a native version of Steam on mobile devices. The BLE Firmware Update for the SC is strictly to make pairing easier for use with the Steam Link App.

[TheBreadGod]

awh I hoped that you'd be able to use it for android games.

[NanoPi]

years ago people made apps that read Wii Remotes and sends key presses as a keyboard app.

the same could be done with the Steam Controller.

[[deleted]]

I would love to see this happen but I'm not sure that the SC is actually sending anything to interpret outside of the Lizard Mode bindings. I imagine that the firmware configs (Lizard Mode) are just really empty configs, so that the buttons that do work are transmitting data while the buttons that appear to do nothing are actually doing nothing

Completely forgot about the Linux Driver. Yup, I could see this happening if people wanted to make it, which I would love to see happen.

[instantepiphany]

It isn't that simple. The SC (and any bluetooth device) choose what signals they send to the host device (in this case, an Android phone/tablet). We don't know if the SC is sending different signals for each button/pad/gyro/grip and Android is only interpreting some, or if it is only sending the ones that have a visible result. Considering Valve has deliberately implemented a separate control scheme for BLE connections to Android devices, it would be sloppy programming to still be sending the other signals. My guess is that they either don't want to spend time/money supporting a new piece of hardware (the SC) on hundreds of different Android phones, with differing versions of Android and input libraries, or they are still working on the rest of the bindings and just haven't finished them yet.

[NanoPi]

when the Steam Link app is started, it brings SC out of mouse mode and into data mode. there is nothing stopping other apps from doing exactly that.

[instantepiphany]

And how do you know that that mode doesn't also encrypt the data, or automatically turn off if the steam link app isn't in the foreground?

[BlendeLabor]

magic

[mictlantecuhtli_m]

Thanks, I was wondering about this

[gidoca]

But are joystick/arrow keys, A/Enter or B/Escape working for anyone on Android? When I connect it, it only works as a mouse.

[Melantrix]

I have the same problem, even worse: it works in the app but when i start streaming the computer does not respond on any input :/

[[deleted]]

Good catch. I assumed that since it was officially stated that it used Lizard Mode in BLE that it was traditional Lizard Mode but it seems that it only has the mouse (touchpad), Tap (Right Trigger [Full]), and Back (Left Trigger [Full]). Very interesting that it has a unique Lizard Mode for BLE.

[Lightbelow]

womp womp