Valve Confirms iFixit Will Continue Selling Steam Deck Batteries
▼ Summary
– Valve initially planned to discontinue the battery for the Steam Deck LCD, but after discussions with iFixit, batteries will be back in stock by next week using original OEM parts from Valve’s partners.
– iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens confirmed the company will find an aftermarket supplier if Valve eventually sunsets the part, ensuring continued battery availability.
– Valve likely misjudged production forecasts for replacement parts, leading to the temporary shortage, according to Wiens.
– EU regulations requiring user-replaceable batteries by 2027 do not apply to the Steam Deck LCD since Valve stopped selling it in December 2023.
– Replacing the Steam Deck LCD battery is difficult due to strong adhesive, but future aftermarket options could use shock-to-release glue for easier removal.
Valve has long been a champion of repair-friendly policies, which made it all the more alarming when news broke that the company might stop supplying batteries for the original Steam Deck LCD. For a device that relies on a user-replaceable power cell, losing access to that critical part just as early adopters begin to need it would have been a major blow to the right-to-repair movement. But as of this afternoon, the situation has been resolved.
“We just confirmed with iFixit that they plan to have batteries back in stock by next week,” a Valve spokesperson told The Verge at 5PM ET. The company clarified that iFixit will continue receiving the same OEM parts sourced through Valve’s existing partners. Earlier in the day, iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens confirmed that Valve had initially informed them it would no longer manufacture replacement batteries or screens for the original LCD model. That sparked a flurry of concern across forums like Reddit.
By the afternoon, however, Valve and iFixit had already found a workaround. “They have hooked us up with a supplier, we’re working on it,” Wiens now says. And if Valve ever does decide to phase out the part entirely, iFixit is prepared to pivot to an aftermarket supplier instead. “I want people to know we are going to find a way to get batteries for these things,” Wiens added.
Wiens described Valve as “a really great partner” and suggested the original shortage was simply a forecasting error. “If you get the forecast wrong, you run out, or you go wrong in the other direction and spend way too much money on parts sitting around doing nobody any good,” he explained.
The timing of this episode is notable given the looming EU battery regulations set to take effect in February 2027. Those rules will require manufacturers to make batteries user-replaceable in devices sold within the bloc. Nintendo has already responded by discontinuing the original Switch in Europe and designing a special EU version of the Switch 2 with a replaceable battery. But the Steam Deck LCD won’t be affected by those rules, because Valve stopped selling that model last December.
U. S. laws offer little additional protection. While some states have passed right-to-repair legislation that mandates parts availability for a set number of years, most explicitly exempt game consoles. (Whether Valve would argue the Steam Deck is a PC rather than a console remains an open question.)
Even when the battery is available, replacing it isn’t exactly simple. As iFixit noted back in 2022, the battery is strongly glued into the frame. Yanking it out carelessly could cause a fire; instead, users must carefully loosen the adhesive. Valve designers admitted to The Verge in a 2022 interview that they weren’t satisfied with that glue, though they explained why they used it.
As for future improvements, Wiens noted that electrically removable adhesives, like shock-to-release glues, are “often too expensive to include in the original device.” But they could be viable as an aftermarket option, adding “a couple bucks extra” to the cost. The upside? By the time you need a replacement from a third-party supplier, it might actually be better than the original.
(Source: The Verge)
