Valve surprised the gaming world by announcing three new hardware devices to sit alongside its popular Steam Deck. One of the standouts is the new Steam Frame VR headset, which promises to handle your entire Steam library of games.
The Steam Frame is a streaming-first headset that can also play stand-alone titles. Valve’s shiny new VR machine could give Meta Quest 3 a run for its money and become the leading headset in the market.
Steam Frame Built to Challenge Meta’s Quest
A Focus on Streaming
The Steam Frame is primarily a streaming device. Wireless streaming is nothing new, but Valve is promising seamless streaming thanks to its plug-and-play 6 GHz wireless adapter.
There are also dual radios, focusing on separate links. One radio is for streaming, audio, and visuals, while the other is dedicated to the Wi-Fi connection. Valve believes this will make the streaming stable with less chance of interference.
Foveated Streaming is the buzzword for the device. This will optimise detail where only your eyes are looking, giving you 10x more clarity in image quality. Low-latency eye tracking is being used, giving the player the best available visuals.
Even in 2025, streaming can be hit or miss. Playing games over the internet still requires a good and solid online connection, and the experience varies from person to person. However, with the wireless adapter and Foveated Streaming, Valve could be onto something.
VR headsets like the Meta Quest 3 already do wireless streaming, but we have never seen a streaming-first device. The promise of stand-alone games is also exciting, but Quest already has a huge library of exclusives that are playable without a PC.
It will be interesting to see what Valve cooks up in this area and whether there will be any exclusive stand-alone Steam Frame titles in the future.
Top-Notch Controllers
The Steam Frame controllers look very similar to the Quest 3’s Touch Plus controllers, offering practically the same experience. Both have haptics, touch sensors, and removable batteries.
One of the main differences is Valve putting all four ABXY buttons onto one controller (the right), while Quest has two on each. This is to make it feel like a traditional controller when playing flat Steam titles, while also being made for VR games.
Stick drift remains a problem with modern gaming controllers, but the Steam Frame will use magnetic thumbsticks to prevent stick drift and reduce wear. These capacitive finger-sensing sticks are also being used in Valve’s upcoming Steam Controller, which was unveiled alongside the new Steam Machine.
The Steam Frame controller boasts impressive specs. They will offer motion controls with full 6-DOF tracking and IMU support. As well as the ABXY buttons and full-size magnetic thumbsticks, the controllers will have analog triggers, bumpers, and various other buttons.
Battery life is also excellent, with Valve stating 40 hours of gameplay before replacing the single AA battery in either controller. Despite all the tech packed in, each controller will weigh just 130 g with the battery inserted.
Headset Tech Specs
The Steam Frame headset specs are sensational. Valve has gone with a 4 nm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor, with 16 GB of unified LPDDRX5 RAM. In short, the device will be blazing fast and smooth as butter.
It will come with a head strap with integrated dual audio drivers and a rechargeable battery. One criticism of the Quest 3 was the dreadful included strap, but Valve’s is looking far more comfortable on paper. Like Meta’s headset, you can swap out the head strap for other solutions that suit.
The Steam Frame will use the familiar inside-out camera tracking, with four outward-facing cameras and two interior cameras for eye tracking and Foveated Streaming. There is passthrough on the outward cameras and IR illuminators for darker environments.
As for the connectivity, the Steam Frame will have Wi-Fi 7, dual radios, Bluetooth 5.3, and the 6 GHz wireless adapter. The weight with the head strap is 440 g, designed to be comfortable and simple to use with balance from front to rear.
Will No OLED Hurt the Device?
Pancake lenses are generally better than the older Fresnel lenses, offering improved image quality and solid low-light performance. They are also lighter and more compact, reducing the weight on the headset.
Thankfully, Valve has taken a leaf out of Meta’s book and fitted the Steam Frame with Pancake lenses. Both optics and visuals are virtually the same, with the Steam Frame having an LCD display with 2,160 x 2,160 pixels per eye compared to Quest 3’s 2,064 x 2,208. The Frame will have a 72-144Hz refresh rate, too.
Although the Quest 3 screen is widely considered to be better than the PlayStation VR2’s, Sony’s headset offers OLED lenses, which are far superior to LCD when it comes to black levels and vivid colours. For example, the Steam Deck OLED screen blows away the original LCD model, and the rumoured Steam Deck 2 could push it even further.
OLED Pancake lenses are the cream of the crop, and it would have been great to see Valve go down that route for the Steam Frame. LCD was expected, but OLED screens would have made the device stand out from the crowd, especially when directly compared to the Meta Quest 3.
Double the Price of Quest 3?
The prices for all three hardware devices have yet to be confirmed, but gamers are already speculating. The Steam Frame is expected to be much higher than the Quest 3, which retails for around $500 (512 GB model).
Of course, Meta offers the cheaper $300 Meta Quest 3S, with lower-resolution Fresnel lenses and a narrow field of view (FOV). Still, having two options is great for VR enthusiasts and a smart move by Meta.
Although rumours suggest it could be under $1000, the Steam Frame is set to be significantly more expensive than Meta’s headsets. The Frame’s specs are impressive, but it remains to be seen whether Valve can knock the Quest off the top spot in the exciting virtual reality market.
