Photo credit: Michaelthatsit
A modder going by u/michaelthatsit on Reddit has taken Valve’s Steam Deck, the portable gaming beast, and flipped it into something wildly different: a pint-sized PC crammed inside a wireless keyboard shell, dubbed Bento. This DIY masterpiece is a flex of pure ingenuity, stuffing the muscle of a handheld console into a form factor that could blend right into your office desk.
“This project has been a game of constraint optimization,” u/michaelthatsit shared on Reddit, laying out the puzzle of morphing a gaming rig into a sleek, keyboard-shaped computer. The spark for Bento came from a deceptively simple realization: the Steam Deck’s guts fit shockingly well within a standard keyboard’s footprint. To pull it off, u/michaelthatsit gutted the Steam Deck down to its essentials—motherboard, battery, fan, the works—and rebuilt them inside a custom 3D-printed enclosure.
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The result is a device that, at first glance, could pass for your average wireless keyboard, rocking a retro Commodore 64-inspired vibe. Pop the hood, though, and you’ve got a full-on Steam Deck ready to fire up your games. “Designed with XREAL_Global glasses in mind,” u/michaelthatsit noted, highlighting a key twist: Bento skips a traditional screen for augmented reality (AR) glasses. Instead of a clunky monitor, Bento pipes the Steam Deck’s video output through a dongle stashed inside the keyboard case, beaming visuals straight to a pair of XREAL glasses.
Using Shapr3D, u/michaelthatsit sketched and modified the design, burning through a pile of botched 3D prints to nail it. “Printer too small? Split body,” they explained, describing how they chopped the enclosure into two pieces to work around their printer’s limits. Parts were sourced from eBay to keep costs in check, while air vents were carved into the top and right sides of the keyboard to keep the Steam Deck’s innards from overheating. Still, the tight quarters cramp airflow, a snag they’re upfront about. “Cooling is still limited due to space constraints,” u/michaelthatsit admitted, but they’re already scheming fixes for the next version.
Bento doesn’t stop at being a cool keyboard PC—it’s built to grow. The design’s modular, with plans for swappable input modules to spice things up. “No mouse? Modules in the works,” u/michaelthatsit teased, suggesting future add-ons like a trackpad or other input gadgets could be on the horizon. This big-picture thinking turns Bento from a one-hit wonder into a platform with legs. The battery, fan, and Steam Deck core are all wired to hum along smoothly inside the keyboard shell, keeping that grab-and-go portability that makes the Steam Deck such a hit.
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