We’ve already seen Valve’s Steam Controller play pre-programmed music and scream on occasion, but one modder is pushing the pad’s haptics further with real-time audio streaming. The results across music and games are impressive, and could benefit gamers who are deaf or have partial hearing.
The mod, succinctly dubbed LiveHaptics, taps into a Windows Audio Session API (WASAPI) loopback, which manages communications between applications and output devices. After capturing audio, the program translates the signal into a readable format for the Steam Controller haptics.
I made the Steam Controller (2026) play live system audio through its haptics
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u/GooseVast6551 in
SteamController
The mod’s creator, known as GooseVast6551 on Reddit and FamBoy32-dev on GitHub, shared footage of LiveHaptics in action using a Madonna music video and an emulated Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time. While the 16-bit/8kHz stereo quality expectedly isn’t fantastic relative to an actual speaker, you can distinctly make out individual sounds across the music and game.
As a non-disabled person, the mod holds little more than novel value reminiscent of the built-in Wilhelm scream. However, Reddit user ‘ThatDeafDude’ has highlighted that this kind of feature could greatly improve immersion in games for those with partial hearing.
Speaking in response to the mod footage, ThatDeafDude says haptics used in this manner “would enhance my experience by feeling more of what’s happening around me in game.” The user had previously taken advantage of the PlayStation 5 DualSense’s haptics to achieve this effect, but found the Steam Controller “much more adaptable” in this regard.
You can try LiveHaptics for yourself by downloading the mod for free from GitHub, providing you’re lucky enough to have made it past the Steam Controller reservation queue. I’m curious to see if Valve will take note of this potential win for accessibility via a future firmware update.
Check out our Steam Controller review for more discussion on what it’s like to use Valve’s gamepad.
