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How to voice chat from the couch (and which headset to buy)? (piefed.social)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/steam_machine@piefed.zip
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Hello. I'm a PS5 gamer. Normally when I want to game with friends online, I put on my PS5 headset and it automatically connects to the console. I start a voice chat group on the console and my friend and I can chat while we play whatever game.

How does this translate to the Steam Machine + couch? Can I just use any bluetooth headset? I thought bluetooth audio had too much latency? Or is there a special type of headset I should buy? Can I start a voice chat through SteamOS? Or do I have to use a third-party app like Fluxer to voice chat?

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[–] [S] 1 point 1 month ago (1 child)

I currently have regular bluetooth headphones, but I'm curious about other options. I found this article https://www.phoronix.com/news/SteelSeries-Nova-7-5X-2026 that says some of the SteelSeries headphones are getting better Linux support! It seems like SteamOS is currently on the 6.x kernel series, but it'll get to 7.3 eventually. Maybe these headphones will get better overtime.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 month ago

    Reporting back: I ended up buying the SteelSeries Nova 5X. I was gonna buy the Nova 7, but surprisingly the mic quality on the Nova 7 sucks ass. I found some videos where the reviewer showed the mic quality on the 7 vs 5 and the 5 sounded way better.

    This seems pretty well supported by headsetcontrol.

    $ cat /etc/os-release | head -n2
NAME="Fedora Linux"
VERSION="44.20260823.0 (Silverblue)"
$ uname -sr
Linux 7.1.9-200.fc44.x86_64
$ sudo ./headsetcontrol-x86_64.AppImage --caps
Found 1 supported device(s):
 SteelSeries Arctis Nova (5/5X) (SteelSeries Arctis Nova 5X) [0x1038:0x2253]
	Capabilities:
	* sidetone
	* battery
	* inactive time
	* chatmix
	* equalizer preset
	* equalizer
	* parametric equalizer
	* microphone mute led brightness
	* microphone volume
	* volume limiter

Hint: Use --help while the device is connected to get a filtered list of parameters

    Haven't run on SteamOS yet.

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