No, playing your Steam Deck constantly plugged into a charger does not reduce the battery lifespan or otherwise damage the Steam Deck’s battery. In fact, using your Steam Deck with external power will reduce the wear on the battery because of a feature called power passthrough.

Does the Steam Deck have power passthrough?

Yes. The Steam Deck supports power passthrough mode, which allows the Deck to exclusively use power supplied through a charger. In power passthrough mode, the Deck’s battery is not used (i.e., the battery is idle), such as when then attached to the Steam Deck Dock. However, if the Deck’s battery charge state is below a certain threshold and the attached external power source is sufficient, the Deck will charge the battery to near-full before resuming passthrough mode operation. The Steam Deck cannot charge the battery and operate in power passthrough mode simultaneously.

• Read more: What charger should I use with the Steam Deck?

Does power passthrough preserve the Steam Deck’s battery?

Yes. While operating in power passthrough mode, the Steam Deck‘s battery is not being used (though it may very slowly drain in the background). This means the battery is not actively cycling. Cycling is the primary cause of degradation in the lithium ion cells of the Steam Deck’s battery. Most lithium ion batteries are “rated” for a certain number of charging cycles before their total capacity reaches 80% of the original rated capacity. Typically, this number is anywhere between 500 and 1500 cycles (an iPad is rated for 1000 cycles, for example). Valve doesn’t publish a guaranteed cycle lifetime for the Steam Deck.

In passthrough mode, the battery accumulates effectively no cycles. Though the battery may need to be “topped up” from time to time (generally, the Deck will limit charging to 90-95% on passthrough mode while playing a game), this is significantly less stressful on the battery than repeated charges from near-empty to full.

You can find more information about the typical lifespan of a Steam Deck here. Of note: Using a portable power bank is one way to keep the Steam Deck in power passthrough mode. I recommend the Anker 737 power bank, which I reviewed here.

Does keeping the Steam Deck at full charge hurt the battery?

This is a complicated question. First, it’s helpful to debunk a few myths. 

1. Lithium ion batteries do not need to be “cycled” in order to maintain their rated capacity. In fact, the opposite is true: the more cycles a lithium ion battery endures, the less capacity it retains. 
2. There is no need to “deep cycle” or “reset” lithium ion batteries; they do not benefit from these actions. 
3. Lithium ion batteries do not lose capacity simply because they are kept at a high state of charge.

But, the reason this question is complicated is that lithium ion batteries accumulate the most cycling stress when charging from roughly 80% to 100%, an inherent trait of lithium ion chemistry. This means that if you play your Steam Deck very infrequently, leaving it plugged in for days or weeks at a time will place (marginally!) more stress on the battery than leaving it unplugged and allowing the battery to go to zero, because the power supply will “top up” the battery on a semi-regular basis (causing some cycling stress), instead of letting it drain (which causes very little cycling stress). Similarly, if you play the Deck such that charging is only necessary every few days or once a week, it is better for the battery to only charge when necessary, as opposed to every day — though how much this will prolong the batteries is debatable.

In an ideal world, there would be a way to limit the Steam Deck’s maximum charge to 80%, as charging to 80% puts less cycling stress on a lithium ion battery than charging it to 100%. However, there is no simple way* to limit a Steam Deck’s maximum state of charge, and only charging when “needed” is rather difficult to achieve in practice. If you need to charge the Steam Deck after every play session — as is frequently the case — there’s really not much you can do to preserve the battery aside from using the Deck less. 

(*There is software that claims to limit the Steam Deck’s maximum charge state, but it’s often unreliable and may cause unintended behavior on the Deck, or “lock” the battery to a maximum charge state that is not easily reverted. Valve likely has not implemented this feature itself because the Steam Deck’s battery power management firmware does not support limiting the state of charge to arbitrary levels, as requests for this feature have gone unanswered.)

To be perfectly clear: Playing the Steam Deck on power passthrough mode puts less stress on the battery than playing on battery power, plain and simple. Passthrough mode keeps the batteries cooler and results in less time overall spent charging. The occasional top-ups needed to keep the battery charged are likely to be negligible in the overall battery lifespan of your Steam Deck compared to regularly discharging and charging the battery. If you’re truly concerned about keeping the battery temperatures low, aftermarket Steam Deck cooling fans are available — I reviewed the most popular model.

Finally, battery and power management technology have come a very, very long way in modern, high-end electronics. Optimized charging algorithms and extremely low background power consumption mean that your Steam Deck is very much not going to be “damaged” by being left plugged in, or even that its battery will experience aging at a noticeably increased rate. The biggest wear factors on a battery are use and temperature, both of which are very difficult to control for. You use your batteries by playing your Steam Deck, and you heat them up by charging and discharging them. If Valve believed that the lifetime of the batteries in the deck could be substantially extended by limiting charging to 80% when plugged in for extended periods, for example, it likely would have implemented this feature when the product was being designed.

Can you replace the Steam Deck’s battery?

Yes, though the process of replacing a Steam Deck battery is… a process. But it’s certainly doable at home if you have the tools (most notably, a heat gun). iFixIt has great documentation available here, and even sells an official replacement kit in many regions. Replacement batteries cost anywhere from around $50 (for OEM-equivalent) or up to $100 (for OEM batteries with some included tools for the replacement process, like iFixIt’s kit). If you don’t want to replace the battery on your own, you can likely get the battery replaced at a reputable phone repair shop — such a place would have all the tools and experience necessary, though you may need to provide them with the replacement battery part.

Read more: Can the Steam Deck replace a gaming PC in 2024?