Personally, beyond HDMI CEC I’m heavily considering picking it up if I get a slot as Valve has a great track record of supporting their hardware, it is quiet and relatively low power consumption, and I will likely not have to tinker much to get a solid experience.
To me it’s similar to 3D printers, you can either pay less and the hardware becomes part of the project/hobby itself. Or you can pay a bit more and just get to reliably use the hardware.
and I will likely not have to tinker much to get a solid experience.
I’m sure the Steam Machine will be fine, but I reject the notion that that differentiates it from any other AMD-based PC running Linux. My AMD-based Linux PC as built a year ago (which is faster than a Steam Machine, BTW) didn’t require much tinkering, and neither did my previous AMD-based Linux PC built about eight years ago. Proton didn’t exist back then, but as soon as it came out it basically had zero problems related to the hardware (as opposed to incompatibilities caused by the lack of maturity of the software itself). With AMD, Linux basically Just Works, and has done for many, many years.
(Also, you don’t have to spend a lot to get a reliable 3D printer. You just have to pay attention to product reviews and such. I’ve got a Creality Ender 3 V3 SE, which was generally considered to be the “best” inexpensive printer as of a few years ago, and it’s been fine. The tradeoff for the low price is lack of fancy features like an enclosure or multiple extruders, not reliability.)
AMD Fine Wine Technology ™️ is definitely a thing with their opensource drivers. Value helps a bit now too but rising tide and all. I think the creature comforts of steamos do stand out. Easy menu for system level FSR for example. Resume game from shutdown looks great too.
Those make it compete to game consoles at least. If you can tinker it’s about the same (with ups and downs) to any other distro.
Exactly. The “made easy” part is a pretty big sell for a lot of people. Heck it’s a sell for me and I love tinkering, but I have plenty of other projects lol
What kind of prints do you think you’ll do most often? (Single-material, multi colour (but same material), or multi-material?)
What’s your budget roughly?
How important is open vs closed ecosystems to you?
I’ve had an Ender 5 Pro for many years that I’ve modified a fair bit (but likely wouldn’t recommend nowadays), I don’t have hands on experience with any newer printers but I’ve been doing a bunch of research for the last few months to see what I might replace it with so I might be able to point you in a few directions depending on your answers to those three criterias.
I suppose I’m not too far along in the process, my kids keep asking me for one but I’m not sure I have much of a use case for one. I think they just want it as a toy, but maybe I could use it to print the occasional replacement part. As far as budget, I’d prefer not to spend more than 1500 but I’d want something that just works right out of the box. I don’t care if the hardware is closed source as it will just be blocked from the internet, but I’d prefer the apps that interface it be open source though.
All in all I’m not sure about the practically of it, I think it will just end up being an expensive toy, but it does seem like a neat capability to have at home.
How old are your kids? Prusa Core One kits are very fun and educational to build and you save some money by getting the kit over the pre-built.
They are also built in the EU, very reliable and servicable. More expensive than the Chinese counterparts but they make up for it with good support, parts availability and open source software. Their hardware is mostly open but not entirely anymore sadly.
Also, some people are willing to pay a premium for good looks and/or HDMI CEC.
Personally, beyond HDMI CEC I’m heavily considering picking it up if I get a slot as Valve has a great track record of supporting their hardware, it is quiet and relatively low power consumption, and I will likely not have to tinker much to get a solid experience.
To me it’s similar to 3D printers, you can either pay less and the hardware becomes part of the project/hobby itself. Or you can pay a bit more and just get to reliably use the hardware.
I’m sure the Steam Machine will be fine, but I reject the notion that that differentiates it from any other AMD-based PC running Linux. My AMD-based Linux PC as built a year ago (which is faster than a Steam Machine, BTW) didn’t require much tinkering, and neither did my previous AMD-based Linux PC built about eight years ago. Proton didn’t exist back then, but as soon as it came out it basically had zero problems related to the hardware (as opposed to incompatibilities caused by the lack of maturity of the software itself). With AMD, Linux basically Just Works, and has done for many, many years.
(Also, you don’t have to spend a lot to get a reliable 3D printer. You just have to pay attention to product reviews and such. I’ve got a Creality Ender 3 V3 SE, which was generally considered to be the “best” inexpensive printer as of a few years ago, and it’s been fine. The tradeoff for the low price is lack of fancy features like an enclosure or multiple extruders, not reliability.)
AMD Fine Wine Technology ™️ is definitely a thing with their opensource drivers. Value helps a bit now too but rising tide and all. I think the creature comforts of steamos do stand out. Easy menu for system level FSR for example. Resume game from shutdown looks great too.
Those make it compete to game consoles at least. If you can tinker it’s about the same (with ups and downs) to any other distro.
Sure, but you can (allegedly – I haven’t actually tried) get that on any AMD system, not just the Steam Machine.
Exactly. The “made easy” part is a pretty big sell for a lot of people. Heck it’s a sell for me and I love tinkering, but I have plenty of other projects lol
Any recommendations on a 3d printer?
I’ve had an Ender 5 Pro for many years that I’ve modified a fair bit (but likely wouldn’t recommend nowadays), I don’t have hands on experience with any newer printers but I’ve been doing a bunch of research for the last few months to see what I might replace it with so I might be able to point you in a few directions depending on your answers to those three criterias.
I suppose I’m not too far along in the process, my kids keep asking me for one but I’m not sure I have much of a use case for one. I think they just want it as a toy, but maybe I could use it to print the occasional replacement part. As far as budget, I’d prefer not to spend more than 1500 but I’d want something that just works right out of the box. I don’t care if the hardware is closed source as it will just be blocked from the internet, but I’d prefer the apps that interface it be open source though.
All in all I’m not sure about the practically of it, I think it will just end up being an expensive toy, but it does seem like a neat capability to have at home.
How old are your kids? Prusa Core One kits are very fun and educational to build and you save some money by getting the kit over the pre-built.
They are also built in the EU, very reliable and servicable. More expensive than the Chinese counterparts but they make up for it with good support, parts availability and open source software. Their hardware is mostly open but not entirely anymore sadly.