Is It Safe To Use A Phone Charger To Charge The Steam Deck?

© Mr.Mikla/Shutterstock Steam switches to Deck

Years ago, devices had circular or proprietary charging ports that were easy to lose and sometimes difficult to purchase. If you've bought a third-party charger for these devices, it probably has features that seem outdated now: a switch on the charging cradle that lets you manually adjust the power output, as well as interchangeable plugs of various sizes that luckily fit into the device. was needed The advent of USB changed that, and USB-C made consumer technology devices more convenient than ever.

Surprisingly, Valve's Steam Deck has a USB-C connector, which is used to charge your handheld, among other things. So you can plug-in any USB-C charger you have around the house, including your laptop and phone charger. It's okay to forget to pack your OEM Steam Deck charger before you leave home, but it raises an important question: Is it really safe to pack your smartphone (or tablet/laptop) charger to use with the Valve console? Fortunately, the answer is simple and straightforward.

USB-C Power Delivery is a game-changer for charging

© Varavin88/Shutterstock USB-C connector cable

The key to charging devices with the latest type of USB connector is USB-C power delivery, a feature capable of delivering up to 240 watts of power from revision 3.1 (over USB-IF) announced in 2021. This technology is the ability to intelligently meet the needs of various devices, from headphones to laptops. When a device meets the USB-C PD specification, it can negotiate the power it needs from the charger, which can then supply what the device needs, or at least make sure it doesn't supply too much power.

This means that even if your USB-C charger can deliver 100 watts of power (as Belkin says is the case with USB-C Power Delivery 3.0), it can still be used to charge a device. It only requires 18 watts: doesn't need or consume all the power your device charger can provide. For this reason, you can use your smartphone charger to charge the Nintendo Switch, and the same goes for the Steam Deck, although unlike the Switch, Valve's handheld is fully compatible with USB Spec-C power delivery, so you don't need to worry about the potential risk of overcharging. Supplied with Nintendo consoles.

Charge Steam Bridge with a phone charger

© PhotoAndalusia/Shutterstock Man playing steam deck

According to Valve, the Steam Deck uses a 45-watt USB-C PD 3.0 charger. If you've lost the charger that came with the console and prefer to stick with a charger designed specifically for the Steam Deck, you can get a replacement from iFixit for $24.99. However, if you have a USB-C PD charger that can deliver at least 45 watts of power to connected devices, it will still work; At this power level, you'll need a laptop charger rather than a smartphone charger, although some phones also have fast chargers that can work.

Note that while you can charge Steam Deck using your phone's charger, that doesn't mean you have to. In addition to the potential risks associated with poor quality chargers, your phone's power requirements are likely lower than your PDA's. Because of this, you may see a warning on Steam that warns you that you have a slow charger plugged in if you're using the charger that came with your phone (via Reddit). In this case, the Steam Deck will charge slowly and may drain the battery even when the console is plugged in while in use.

How do you know if your phone charger is too slow for the Steam Deck? In addition to checking the specifications provided by the manufacturer, you should also check the USB cable - if it has USB-C connectors on each end, it probably supports USB-C PD 3.0 charging. However, if your charging cable has a USB-C connector on one end and a USB-A connector on the other end, it may not fully meet the Steam Deck's requirements and you'll see a slow charging warning when you plug in. . in the console

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