Valve is finally ready to launch its highly anticipated all-in-one Steam Frame, a wireless VR headset built for VR and non-VR gaming. The company describes it as lightweight (440 grams with the headstrap), compact, and comfortable, with a design somewhat reminiscent of the latest Meta Quest headsets. Naturally, as it's coming from Valve, it includes native Steam integration that lets you wirelessly stream "your whole Steam library."
Interestingly, the Steam Frame handles wireless streaming via a dedicated link and an included Wi-Fi adapter. Wireless streaming also supports the Steam Frame's new Foveated Streaming technology, which uses built-in eye-tracking to enhance image quality where your eyes are looking.
The Steam Frame is also a standalone headset, powered by a 4nm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor and 16GB of Unified LPDDR5X RAM. Spec-wise, it features an LCD with a 2160 x 2160 per-eye resolution, a 72-144Hz refresh rate, inside-out camera tracking, dual speakers for each ear, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, and UFS storage starting at 256GB with microSD expansion. Priced at $1,059 USD for the 256GB and $1,299 USD for the 1TB model, each Steam Frame also ships with a copy of Valve's Half-Life: Alyx.
The Arm-based device runs SteamOS 3, and Valve describes the headset as "PC," offering access to over 100 games at launch that run natively on the device. The headset also includes battery-powered Steam Frame Controllers that support motion and finger tracking.
All in all, for VR fans looking for Valve's answer to the Meta Quest, the Steam Frame headset's design is impressive. However, like the Steam Machine, the $1,059 USD price point is much higher than Valve originally intended because of the DRAM and storage crisis and shortages. This also means that the Steam Frame launch is following a lottery system. Right now, you can sign up to choose which model (256GB or 1TB) you'd like to purchase, and on Thursday, September 17th at 10 a.m. Pacific Time, sign-ups will close, and Valve will select successful Steam Frame customers via a randomized lottery, with those left over put into a reservation queue.
Frequently Asked Questions
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How do the Steam Frame's wireless streaming and included Wi‑Fi adapter work with a PC?
Does Steam Frame support all of a user's Steam library, or only certain titles for wireless streaming?
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"As units become available, people in the reservation queue will receive an email with the option to purchase," Valve explains. "With the first batch of those starting September 18th, we will continue to go through the reservation queue as units become available."
