This Apple AirTag Mod For Steam Deck Is Cheap Insurance Against Loss Or Theft

If you're one of those individuals, you could take advantage of this Redditor's idea: stuff an Apple Airtag in the handgrip of your Steam Deck. They have a video at the Reddit link there, and you can clearly see how the Airtag sits snugly inside the Steam Deck's chassis without interfering with the functionality of the right-side grip buttons. Inside is preferred because an enterprising thief is likely to just pop off an external tag.

As one of the commenters notes, we'd probably wrap the thing in insulating tape to make sure it doesn't short anything inside the deck. Still, given how easy it is to get into the Steam Deck—a quite-intentional decision on Valve's part—this isn't a terrible idea for folks who are already familiar with Airtags and their usage.

Of course, you don't use Airtags on a smartphone, and the Steam Deck is just as much computer as any phone. Another Redditor in the comment threads points out that Apple's API has already been reverse-engineered, so you could use the OpenHaystack framework to turn the Steam Deck itself into an "Airtag" of sorts. Considering it's just a portable PC with Arch Linux on it, that could be quite easy indeed.

Ultimately we'd like Valve to include a "find my Deck" feature officially, but this is really a solution in search of a problem. The Steam Deck is quite large—significantly larger than the Switch or even the Aya Neo—and if you leave it laying around, that's probably on you.