Episode 9: What's the Matter Daddy?

What we cover

• The Steam Machine pricing reveal and whether $1,049 is fair, considering all the supply chain constraints, the 8GB VRAM on the GPU, and the "4K ready" marketing that nobody's buying. We also discuss SteamOS getting a broader "release" and whether it presents any advantages over Bazzite.
• Matter 1.6 and the joint Fabric spec — finally letting Google, Amazon, and Apple co-administer the same device network — plus the Open Home Foundation's "proxy all the things" push to pull legacy RF and IR devices into Home Assistant without new hardware.
• Alex's deep-dive review of 16 Jellyfin clients for tvOS: the contenders and not-so-good options, the criteria that separated them, and why AI-powered search has him genuinely excited. Also, we talk about Jellyfin's version 12 RC1 release and the under-the-hood performance improvements that are coming, as well as how Jellyfin June is going and whether we should take a look at Emby.

First up, Valve finally put a price tag on the Steam Machine, and it landed at $1,049, which is higher than almost everyone was expecting. We go through the specs, the supply chain realities Valve was dealing with, the RAM lottery buyers might face, and the "4K ready" marketing claim that the benchmarks don't really support. We also talk about the quiet win: a gaming console shipping with Linux as its default OS. Geoff also flags the LTT Linux challenge wrap-up, where even Linus himself came away more sold on Linux than expected.

Next, we cover the Matter 1.6 release, which finally allows multiple smart home ecosystems to co-administer the same device network rather than siloing everything behind individual hubs. Geoff unpacks what that actually means in practice, the difference between Matter over IP and Matter over Thread, and why the Open Home Foundation's parallel push to bring IR, RF, and Bluetooth devices into Home Assistant as first-class citizens matters just as much as the spec itself. The panel remains cautiously optimistic about Matter's long-term prospects, with the crew admitting they've been hearing "Matter is almost here" for years at this point.

Finally, Alex brings his exhaustive tvOS Jellyfin client review to the table: 16 clients tested, four strong contenders, and one that's emerged as his clear favorite. We also touch on Jellyfin version 12 RC1, the one-way database migration you should snapshot before attempting, and the perennial Emby vs. Jellyfin debate, which the crew puts to bed pretty decisively.

Tags: Steam Machine, Valve, SteamOS, Linux gaming, Bazzite, Matter 1.6, joint Fabric, Home Assistant, Open Home Foundation, Jellyfin, Jellyfin clients, tvOS, Neptune, Emby, Plex

Links

• https://youtu.be/66QzlDewigE?si=ET1ZiWfcPIT7tFT9/
• https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/06/valve-upgraded-the-steamos-installation-image-to-the-big-steamos-3-8-release/
• https://steamdeckhq.com/news/valve-gives-green-light-to-install-steamos-on-desktop/
• https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2026/06/23/the-matter-upgrade-youve-been-waiting-for/
• https://www.openhomefoundation.org/blog/proxy-all-the-things-no-device-left-behind/
• https://csa-iot.org/newsroom/matter-1-6-enables-more-intuitive-setup-multi-ecosystem-experiences-and-context-driven-control/
• https://www.theverge.com/tech/896006/ikea-matter-thread-smart-home-problems
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP9uoA6PX8U