There are a surprising number of ways to increase and decrease the brightness of the screen on your Steam Deck. It won’t matter if you have the LCD or OLED model, as these features are built into SteamOS which will be on all versions of the device.
Sadly, none of these methods (that I’m aware of) are interchangeable across both Desktop Mode and Gaming Mode.
So if you are currently playing a game or if you are in Gaming Mode, then you’ll want to follow the first options I mention here today. However, if you are in Desktop Mode and you are trying to figure out how to adjust the Steam Deck brightness levels, then you’ll need to follow the method specifically for it.
Hopefully in the future Valve does some work with SteamOS to get these features working across both modes.
Setting the Steam Deck Brightness Levels in Gaming Mode
I currently know of three different ways of doing this in Gaming Mode. Two of them will work fine whether you’re actively playing a game so let’s go over those two first.
Quick Settings Panel
The first way I learned how to change Steam Deck brightness levels is through the Quick Settings menu. You can find this by pressing the Ellipsis button (three dots) on the right-hand side of the deck. This will bring up what is called the Quick Settings panel and there’s a lot that we can do here.
If you don’t see the Brightness slider then you’ll need to make sure the Settings Cog icon is selected.
This will give you access to features like the Brightness slider, toggles for Airplane Mode, WiFi, Bluetooth, and more. So once you see that slider at the top, go ahead and swipe it left or right to increase or decrease overall brightness levels.
Button Combo Method
If, for some reason, you would rather not do that. Then there are some others ways we can make the screen of the Steam Deck brighter or darker. This second way that I want to mention is a button combination of sorts.
- Press and hold the Steam button.
- Then press the Left Thumbstick up or down to change the brightness.
I was surprised to learn about this Steam Deck brightness shortcut. Not because I didn’t expect one to be available, but because it is so unintuitive to perform. It’s difficult to press the Steam button and the Left Thumbstick up or down with just one hand. So I’m just confused as to why it was setup in this way.
For example, having us use the Right Thumbstick for this gesture would be much easier in my opinion. I realize that button combination does other things, but adjusting the brightness of the display is something I would expect to be a bit more thought out.
Settings Menu
So while the first two options I mentioned here can be done while you’re in the middle of a game, this one cannot. That’s because we’re essentially staying in Gaming Mode so that we can open up the Settings menu.
- Which can be done by pressing the Steam button first.
- Then highlighting the Settings option before pressing the A button to select it.
- Now highlight the Display menu.
- So that you can set the brightness of the Steam Deck using the slider.
The Quick Settings panel is basically just a quicker way of accessing this slider. But there are actually some benefits to doing it this way.
Enabling the Steam Deck Adaptive Brightness Feature
We actually need to go into the Settings menu from here before we can turn on Adaptive Brightness for the Steam Deck.
If you’re not familiar with what Adaptive Brightness is, then I’ll explain it real quick. When enabled, it’s a way for the device to detect the current light levels of your environment. If it’s very bright then the brightness levels will be bumped up a little bit more than usual. If it’s rather dark where you are, then the overall brightness will be reduced a bit.
Changing the Steam Deck Brightness Levels in Desktop Mode
One thing I’ve noticed while exploring the version of SteamOS that is installed on my Steam Deck is that many features do not work across both Gaming Mode as Desktop Mode. So when I learned how to capture a screenshot while I was playing a game, I was shocked to learn that it didn’t work while I had the device in Desktop Mode.
I’m sure there’s a reason for this but I would like to see Valve work on this in future updates.
- But we can do this by first clicking on the Battery icon in the system tray (bottom right corner).
- And then adjust the Display Brightness slider from the pop-up window.
Adjusting the Brightness of my Steam Deck
Conclusion
There may be some additional ways we can make the Steam Deck display brighter or darker. I am currently aware of these four methods but if there are more then please share them with the community!