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Steam Deck

Status: implemented; pending live-hardware validation.

The Steam Deck exposes its integrated 6-axis IMU (accel + gyro, no magnetometer) on the same Valve HID interface as the original Steam Controller.

Bosch BMI260, 6-axis. Gyro ±2000 dps (int16), accel ±2 g (int16), native rate ~250 Hz (4 ms interval). No magnetometer, no battery telemetry on the wire.

28DE:1205, integrated over USB.

By default the in-kernel driver puts the gamepad surface into “lizard mode” - the buttons emulate a keyboard and the right trackpad a mouse. To get raw HID reports with IMU data, the driver clears the digital mappings, loads default settings, sets empty digital mappings, and repeats that under every ~800 ms; otherwise the kernel re-enables lizard mode and the IMU stream stops.

  • Rumble hardware is present, but the rumble write is not wired yet, so the capability is advertised as off.
  • No magnetometer, so yaw is gyro-integrated with motion-based bias correction.