Valve's 2026 Steam Controller has no speaker, but it can play Doom, sing 'Still Alive' from Portal, and perform the Super Mario Bros. 2 ground theme using only its haptic rumble motors.
The trick is not a gimmick but a direct descendant of a real tinkering tradition: the original Steam Controller, discontinued in 2019, had an open-source program built around the same idea of driving haptic actuators at precise frequencies to produce audible tones. The new hardware is capable enough to carry full melodic lines, not just beeps.
The full piece at The Verge includes three video demonstrations and explains the actual mechanism behind how a motorized rumble system produces pitched sound. If you care about haptic hardware, unconventional audio output, or what Valve's controller platform can do beyond standard game input, read it.
[READ ORIGINAL →]