Valve also tells Ars that streaming on the Steam Frame will be “maximum efficiency”, maximizing battery life from the included 21.6Wh battery. “Battery life will be much more variable depending on the game and its settings,” Valve engineer Jeremy Celan and designer Lawrence Young told Ars via email.
Okay, where is the external display with the fake eyes?
Valve
Black is the new black.
Valve
Black is the new black.
Valve
Okay, where is the external display with the fake eyes?
Valve
Black is the new black.
Valve
A knob on the underside of the headset, presumably to adjust the distance between the individual lenses.
Valve
A knob on the underside of the headset, presumably to adjust the distance between the individual lenses.
Valve
The padded back of the strap holds the Steam Frame lens body securely on your head.
Valve
The padded back of the strap holds the Steam Frame lens body securely on your head.
Valve
A knob on the underside of the headset, presumably to adjust the distance between the individual lenses.
Valve
The padded back of the strap holds the Steam Frame lens body securely on your head.
Valve
While a wired PC connection will go a long way toward solving battery life and added lag issues, Valve has stated that Steam Frame won't even support it as an option. “We're focused on reliable wireless streaming, so we included a dedicated wireless adapter, installed a dedicated streaming-only radio in the headset, and invented a new streaming technology to optimize streaming (Foveated Streaming),” Celan and Yang told Ars.
Lightweight modular core
Overall, the Steam Frame weighs just 440 grams, which is a welcome and significant drop from the Quest 3's 515 grams. Interestingly, Valve's specs also specifically list the headset's 185-gram hardware “core,” which includes all major components beyond the battery, headband, and speakers (e.g. lenses, displays, motherboard, cooling, processor, RAM, tracking system etc.).
The weight of the core is important, Selan and Yang told Ars, because “it's designed to be modular, so you can imagine other headsets being plugged into that core module that have different features.” So tinkerers or third-party headset makers could theoretically create modified versions of the Steam Frame, with lighter batteries or optimized headband-speaker combinations, for example. According to Valve, Steam Frame monochrome pass-through cameras can also be accessed through the front expansion port with a standard PCIe Gen 4 interface.
This is an interesting potential direction for new equipment coming to market. a more niche, less irrationally explosive virtual reality market than previous Valve virtual reality headsets. But with companies like Apple and Meta moving on to augmented reality and/or mixed reality equipment Lately, it's been nice to see Valve continue to cater to the small but dedicated market of gamers who are still interested in playing in a fully immersive virtual environment.
