For the average PC user, the (modern) Steam Machine is a mediocre 3rd-party prebuilt system with the interesting quirk of being Linux native with no Microsoft licensing.
For the average gamer, the Steam Machine is a console-like experience to a game library stretching back to nearly the dawn of gaming with little worry that the next release will have you purchasing your favorite titles again.
For the average game developer, the new lineup is excellent reference hardware. Having something real to target helps combat scope creep, whereby a game has fancy features that look nice until you realize the game only runs properly on a $15K machine for example.
For Valve, they are in a life or death battle to sever their dependency on Microsoft. Their hardware is mostly an excuse to build out their platform capabilities
- The 2013 Steam Machine coincided with releasing a Linux native version of their client.
- The OG Steam controller encourages devs to implement their Steam Input virtual control package.
- The Steam Link upgraded their remote play capabilities.
- The Steam Deck coincided with the deployment of Proton, so they can make their back-catalog run outside windows on any x86_64 machine. It also served as a testbed for improving their power efficiency and standby mode operations.
- With the Steam Frame, they’re implementing both FEX and Lepton:
- FEX runs x86_64 games on ARM devices (meaning that it can run any windows game on any average smartphone/tablet/etc if it’s powerful enough)
- Lepton is based on Waydroid to run Android apps on Linux, allowing game developers for Android and the Quest to easily import their titles into the Steam platform
- The Box is an important accessory to the Frame, as the headset is going to be lightweight system comparatively.





I’m not sure what to tell ya. A cheap ARM device is the CanaKit 2GB Raspberry Pi 4 starter kit costs $110, but the JetKVM I recommended above including the ATX adapter is also $110
https://www.amazon.com/CanaKit-Raspberry-4GB-Starter-Kit/dp/B07V2B4W63/
https://www.wisdpi.com/products/jetkvm
https://www.wisdpi.com/products/atx-extension-board
The only setup I can imagine that’s technically cheaper is an esp32 flashed with firmware, as discussed by another user (you already replied to it): https://lemmy.world/comment/20842145
But the esp32 (regardless of if you use a wire to simulate a button press, or have the device generate the WoL packet) is gonna be a pain to setup and flash by comparison to the other options.
If you already have a pi, it just needs to be flashed with Raspbian and install the app etherwake ‘sudo apt-get install etherwake’ and run it with ‘sudo etherwake [target MAC]’.