this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2026
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Steam Hardware

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Whenever my main pc is running some heavy game that requires all resources, I throw my handheld on the 2nd monitor, just swapping inputs between bluetooth and wireless to go back and forth when necessary. Works great for multitasking. Think it's nice when my handheld is being used for gaming, my pc is in productivity mode, and when I want to play something heavier my handheld becomes the productivity pc (I sometimes do remote work and keep games running on my main pc for when I take breaks so I don't have to reload the game.)

Obviously a benefit that can come from any mini pc, backup laptop, etc. but in the case of handhelds, mine is never just sitting around collecting dust, if I'm gaming on my PC, it is doing my regular pc tasks like webbrowsing, streaming, etc. and if I'm using my main pc for productivity it becomes my gaming break device again. Just not something I considered as I was worried if I got back into heavier gaming on my pc it would become a waste of money.

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[–] Luckaneer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I'd recommend Barrier over wireless/Bluetooth switching.

https://github.com/debauchee/barrier

It's in the package manager too. You just glide your mouse across to the decks display as though it were a second screen and your keyboard and mouse work seamlessly there. Alternatively you can switch with a keyboard shortcut.

[–] crater2150@feddit.org 1 points 11 hours ago

The barrier repo is basically dead, input-leap is a fork from two of the previous maintainers and still actively developed: https://github.com/input-leap/input-leap/issues/1414 So unless you're using an apt based distro (which don't seem to have it packaged yet), I'd recommend using that instead.

[–] dil@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 day ago

That's awesome, didn't know that existed.