If you've got a Steam Deck, you already know that you're essentially wielding a full-fledged PC in a portable format. This versatility opens up a plethora of unconventional and fascinating uses. Whether you're coding, gaming, or even converting it into a server, the Steam Deck offers a broad range of capabilities.

Please note that many of these require you to leave your console on at all times. If you have an OLED model then you should be particularly worried, as keeping it on at all times could damage the screen. Otherwise, this is a great way to play around with Linux and get to grips with a new operating system, but we don't really recommend taking any of these seriously.

1 Use your Steam Deck as a NAS

Keep external storage plugged in at all times

If you keep your Steam Deck in a dock, you can hook up an external drive to it and make it accessible over your network. It's a literal network-attached storage, though it's not exactly as powerful as what you can get from other NAS devices that are dedicated for this kind of usage.

For example, Linux on the Steam Deck supports sharing a drive over SMB, which is also natively supported by both Windows and Mac. You can share your Steam Deck's storage over the network and make it accessible to any other device on the network too, including external drives, making it perfect for automatic backups.

The only downside of this is that you'll need to leave your Steam Deck plugged in or docked and actually switched on at the same time, which probably isn't great for its battery longevity. If you have an OLED model too, you'll need to protect against burn-in and turn the backlight right down or even off.

2 Use your Steam Deck as a full-fledged PC replacement

Who needs a PC?

The Steam Deck's support for docks means that you can use it as a full-fledged PC, and that goes for any gaming handheld with support for docks. You can drop it into a dock, plug in a mouse and keyboard, and output the display to a monitor. Now you can use the Steam Deck's desktop mode to use it as, well, a desktop.

It may be surprising as well to learn that this is actually a completely usable setup. There aren't really many compromises here, as the specifications that make the Steam Deck an excellent gaming device also make it a great portable PC, too. It won't magically become a top-of-the-line PC that will blaze through everything, but it's perfectly usable for all kinds of minor and medium-intensity tasks that you might put a normal PC or laptop through.

Of all the strange uses for a Steam Deck, this is honestly one of the most tame!

3 You can run game servers from your Steam Deck

Run a Minecraft server on the go

Going back to the Steam Deck just being a computer, that also means you can run a Minecraft server on it. It has full Java support, and being able to play Minecraft on it also comes with the ability to run a Minecraft server on it, too. You could even run a server and play at the same time with some workarounds, but the big thing is that you can use the Steam Deck as a Minecraft server and invite your friends to play.

Of course, there is some networking work that you may need to do to allow them to join, but the point is that it works. You can run other game servers too, such as Source engine games like Counter-Strike 2. It requires you to make sure your Steam Deck stays on the entire time, but it's a budget way to host a server on another machine if you want to play with some friends without impacting your own gaming performance.

4 Develop games on the Steam Deck

No really, you can

Ever wanted to use your gaming device... to make games? Can't say we have either, but you absolutely can. Godot, Unreal Engine 5, and Unity are all game engines that you can install and use on a Steam Deck without any issue, and they're free (mostly... look into the terms of service) to use and make games with. Plus, you can then immediately deploy those games and try them out, cutting out the middleman of exporting it to your Steam Deck to see how it plays.

Of course, this is isn't exactly practical, but it's a silly way to make and play games anywhere you want. Innovation, right?

5 Use your Steam Deck as a controller

It's like an Xbox controller, but bigger... and much heavier

If you play a lot of games on your PC but want the convenience of using a controller, did you know you can use your Steam Deck as a controller with your PC? One way to do that is to use Steam Remote Play to play games on your PC with your Steam Deck. It's quite bandwidth inefficient because it's streaming the entire game over your network to your Steam Deck, though, but there's an even better way.

If you don't mind getting into your Steam Deck's desktop mode, you can use VirtualHere. It can turn any device into a USB server, and it will allow you to essentially connect to your Steam Deck over a network and relay it as a controller to applications on your PC.

Keep in mind that this is very much a workaround and not something you should necessarily rely on, but it definitely works if you just want to do some laid-back gaming on your actual PC.

6 Host a website

We really, really don't recommend this one

If you fancy yourself a developer and want to find a really unique use for your Steam Deck, you can host a website on it and make it accessible to anyone, at any time. Remember how we mentioned the Steam Deck is just like a PC? That includes all of the software you can use to host a website. Anything from Apache to nginx to even a Python Flask application will work, and all you need is a few minutes of your time.

Depending on what you decide to use, there's a certain level of setup required to get it working. With Flask, the Steam Deck comes with Python but doesn't come with pip. You'll need to install pip and add it to your PATH, and then you can install the Flask module and run applications as normal. For Apache and nginx, you'll have different levels of setup, but it can work, and you can then keep your Steam Deck plugged in and connected to the internet to serve the web application to anyone requesting it.

This is a really weird way to use your Steam Deck, but hey, it works!