Beardo Benjo review of the Steam Frame is out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0V2VJNVFx4

Summary:

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CONs

1. Uncomfortable controllers.

2. Bad battery.

3. Mediocre display, basically same as Quest 3.

4. Awful passthrough.

5. 2x the cost of a Quest 3+ comfort mod + VD.

PROs

1. Very comfortable.

2. "Looks cool" (?)

3. Wireless dongle works very well.

4. Open platform and ecosystem.

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Beardo Benjo says his take is "positive" but my take on this device, based on reviews I have seen, is that I don't think there are many VR headset releases that have been as crushingly disappointing as this, considering how freaking long it took Valve to cook and release it. People were waiting for it like the second coming of whatever religious figure you choose.

Uncomfortable/unergonomic controllers is simply unforgivable, low resolution LCD is disappointing and a bad battery is annoying. If this was released in 2024 it would have been a different story, but this is 2026 and I think a device that costs over 1000 should have at least had some better designed controllers and improved display tech inside it.

unrelated cat.

Update: Will share a better video soon once SW UI and screen recording is ready.

Hi all!

We are a small team from the Bay Area. It's been a month since our last post. So just want to share a little bit of the progress. This week we started CNC and assembling our first glasses. Overall schedule is on track. Form factor will be the same as seen in the video, but more SW updates are coming.

Specs stays the same:
- Lightweight XR glasses with ~93g total weight, feels light, fits into a regular sunglasses case, designed for everyday use.

- 5K Micro-OLED, 6DoF tracking, hands tracking, <10ms passthrough latency, ~80° Diagonal FOV

- v1 is tethered, working with your phone, handheld gaming console, and laptop

- Timeline: first public release at AWE 2026 and kickstarter will start around the same time frame.

We are hearing all the feedback from last time. More progress updates will be on our discord, and a new website with more details is on the way.

Discord: https://discord.gg/DFZ9u3MzSZ

Waitlist (everyone on the list will receive an early bird code): https://tally.so/r/BzXkk1

Let me know any questions or thoughts.

Steam Frame is very likely not your typical VR headset. It's going for the Apple's spatial computing vibe. The main goal is enhancing flat screen games with spatial features. Game screen lighting your room, dropping shadows, game objects. You may have extra windows like game map, inventory next to your screen. You will be able to have friends in your virtual Steam home. But the main target is similar to the Steam deck, just simple, cheap flat screen games on a standalone device, no fancy PC graphics upgrades, no fancy finger, body tracking for VR. Basically, Valve is trying to bring flat screen games closer to VR.. rather then trying to push VR headsets and games harder. The later model did not work. Even Meta and Sony are canceling VR projects one after another too.

I would love to see the mental Gymnastics for this one

Thoughts?

I will say that my biggest complaint is the fov in the quest 3. It's field of view is "good", but not as big as the index, and it has an "edgy" look to top, sides, the top left and right corners, which is very noticeable coming from an index. To me that is immersion breaking. The index has an overall better field of view, not just in size, but in shape. The index fov is round and natural looking and q3 is jagged at the top, top left, top right and sides. It doesn't look natural like the index does.

Pancake lenses are truly the best thing about the q3 though. Huge improvement. The clarity of the displays are an improvement from the index, too, but the field of view issues mentioned above, to me, make it not worth it. You can supersample in steamvr settings to 226% to get the clarity of quest 3 and it looks basically the same.

Wireless isn't there yet. This is very touchy and subjective of course, but if I have to redo my entire network(and gpu for that matter-running a 3070) and upgrade from a 5g router to a 6e router (which i tried) to experience latency that is almost as good as tethered, it's not worth it. I got at best 35ms latency on virtual desktop in Alyx, but spiked up to 60ms at times. Move my head quickly and I got stutters. 13ms on the index consistently, compared to at best currently 28ms and on average 40-55ms for most of the quest 3 population, it is highly noticeable to me. This is where true fidelity happens imo, with low latency.

If valve releases a headset with pancake lenses, micro oled displays with the same field of view of the index, and shape of that field of view, it's over for q3, for those that use it for pcvr exclusively. Even if it's lcd like the q3 with pancake lenses, with same fov as index, and a wireless standalone option, q3 is dead.

controllers are ok, I used the meta official straps to have them be like the index controllers, but that adds another $40.

Also the comfort of the index is so much better than q3. Having to upgrade to an elite strap with a battery for between $80-$130 to get up to 4 hours of gameplay adds onto the cost to somewhere near $700 plus tax(when including meta's official hand straps), and even then the comfort is not good in comparison to the index. the faceplates material is not comfortable, and removing the thing feels like you are going to break it every time. Magnets here like the index are the clear answer.

I have more testing to do on standalone, but my verdict stands with the pcvr aspect of q3- not there yet in comparison to index.

edit: forgot to mention passthrough- it's great but does nothing really i care about. it's a "cool feature" but that's it. also much grainier when actually using it in the headset than the videos you see posted.

I know I'm in the minority with my opinion, but that's ok.

What are the thoughts of other VR enthusiasts?

I am sure it is a great standalone device, but coming from highest end PCVR as of 2019 to this, it is a downgrade in many important places.

Just a comparison if anyone is interested.

Quest Pro through Link@500 encode rate @ default 1.0x render resolution (My PC can push it at x1.8 if I wanted to).

Project Cars 2 vs GT7

X5 Zoom

x5 Zoom - Logo

Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxies Edge - Quest Pro running the stand alone version

x5 zoom

Desktop vs Menu Screen (fine text details)

x5 Zoom

Sweet spot / Glare Test

IF you want to see RE8 PCVR Mod vs PSVR2 official mod - let me know.

So, as an old person involved in IT, throughout my many years I've had nothing but headaches with USB wifi dongles. They are often a massive pain and so many people have issues with them. (Of course, every now and then they work fine out of the box. But it's random and there's no product that always works for every person.)

When the Steam Frame dongle was announced, I was very sceptical that it would be as easy and reliable as people were hoping. Looking at the posts in the Frame subreddit, I see my doubts confirmed.

I wish Valve had sold a little puck that connects to ethernet and acts as a preconfigured dedicated access point instead, or something. I hate USB wifi dongles :/

I was one of the lucky ones to get offer to purchase a steam frame but something stopped me and I eventually cancelled. I kept thinking 1200+ for essentially a quest 3 with similar performance and only better PCVR Which apparently turns out Quest 3 PCVR is more reliable after initial reviews.

And now right after meta connect, OMG I cant believe the Meta VR glasses. You get the best of everything for the steam frame pricing which is always heavily subsidized so any other company would probably sell it for 2k+.

Micro OLED, 100 gr and just like normal glasses and more ways to use it and actually workplace monitor replacement now?

I dont know man this whole thing with meta being a bad company, feels like this bad company is the one that revived VR, made AR glasses a thing when google couldnts and is pushing the boundaries of innovation and technology.

not in this video but I especially hated those bugs or something.. However, the game itself was amazing. kinda understood why so many people call this game as a masterpiece

I have a Quest 3 and so far I have been very happy with my purchase. However, I went to try out the Apple Vision Pro demo and I was blown away. So blown away in fact that how my quest 3 doesn’t feel as good anymore. It’s to a point where I’ve already factory reset it because I’m heavily considering selling it. I want to save up for the theoretical valve index 2 to be released. I don’t believe that vr is currently for me and I want it to get just a little bit better. Has anyone else felt like this?

Edit: A lot of people seem to have misunderstood me. I have no intention of getting the Apple Vision Pro. I was just saying that it has gotten me excited for the future of vr. I’ve decided to give me quest 3 another chance and try to avoid using the pass through and just focus on pure immersion.

https://youtu.be/xKxjjlY1Vxk?si=sTA51bxxHziT2Z19

I was curious what was so special about Apple's innovative "spatial video" and was doing some research and came across this video. Apparently spatial video is just 3D video? And the Alicia Keys video that everyone is talking about is just a VR180 video? These things have been around for a while now and I have watched a ton of 3D and VR180 videos in my other headsets over the years.

If Apple just told us that the AVP was going to deliver us high fidelity 3D and VR180 content then that would be an accurate description of what we're getting. Instead, they tried to make it appear to be something entirely new and even had an actor in their marketing video act as though he could move side to side and see the spatial video from different angles, which isn't even remotely true.

This is why people get frustrated with Apple. Their attempts to disguise existing tech and features as some new innovation of theirs. Then they get all these people who eat it up and make claims about how Apple is revolutionizing another industry. It's just silly.

I will give Apple credit that through the cult like brand loyalty they have grown over the years they can get away with building a $4000 consumer headset with high end parts. I don't think Meta could get away with that, at least not something that wasn't enterprise focused. I also would love to see Meta bring some more productivity features to their headsets like the AVP.

Augmented Reality (AR) seems cool at first, but when you really think about it, it doesn’t have much of a real purpose. Whether it’s for gaming, work, or anything else, a normal setup can do the job better without all the extra hassle. The hardware is expensive, and on top of that, you still have to wear a VR headset. Sure, headsets are improving, but they still have a lot of problems. After a while, your eyes start to feel irritated, motion sickness kicks in, and overall, it just gets uncomfortable. At that point, why not just use a regular screen? AR sounds futuristic, but in reality, it just doesn’t offer enough benefits to make it worth all the downsides.

Update: Appreciate all the responses! First and foremost, Is totally get why Beat Saber is the go-to. it's easy, fun, and doesn't cause motion sickness. But honestly, the fact that everyone is defending it as the only good demo kind of proves my point. It's been 7 years. VR has come a long way in hardware, but the content we're showing off hasn't caught up. I'm not saying ditch Beat Saber I'm just saying, why isn't there something new standing beside it by now?

Original post:

First of all, I consider myself an eager fan of VR. I got obsessed years ago when I read "Ready Player One" in high school.

I walked into Target today and saw someone demoing the Quest 3. Excited, I strapped it on… and it was just Beat Saber....

Really? We’re still using a 7-year-old rhythm game with color blocks to show off cutting-edge VR? It’s fun, sure, but it doesn’t exactly scream “next-gen.” And that right there sums up why VR still feels stuck — amazing potential, but the content isn’t keeping up.

I bought the original Oculus Quest years ago. But the games were short, pricey, and the headset was heavy. Everything looked blurry no matter how I adjusted it. I didn’t even have enough space to enjoy it properly. Eventually, it just sat in its bag, unused. I lost my Interest. Especially with whatever weird stuff Facebook and Mark were doing with it. But I was interested in getting back in with quest 3. I was disappointed I couldn't see more out of it today.

• The first one is the Gamer type. They see VR as the natural evolution of the constant progress for better visuals in gaming. They prefer sitting down when playing, and don't care about gimmickry VR features. They just want the latest AAA game shoehorned into VR.

• The second users are the pioneers. They're the one's who collects stereoviews, gets laser eye operations to make their sight fit VR, and are all about "immersion". They HATE fun. They tried it once, and it was AWFUL!! The more cucumbersome, the better!

(I'm pretty solidly in the 2nd category myself.)

Do you agree with this take? I don’t think they should go all in, but they’re missing out.

It’s insanely strange that in the gaming community VR is not taken seriously or not even part of the discussion.

I see people go “oh xbox is not selling that well so maybe they should try doing a steamdeck device” when Quest 2 itself has surpassed Xbox total sales this generation, and has 4x more than Steam Deck.

I swear there is a MASSIVE market opportunity here but companies are boring, and traditional gamers keep asking for the same stuff.

Just a heads up, sadly, Alien Rogue Incursion is a scam. I was so excited for this release, but damn, man, they not only dropped the ball, they fucking threw it out the window.

Every trailer and promotional art, as well as the Steam and Meta pages, advertised the game as a full game/story. However, on the day of the release, they removed a bunch of screenshots, changed the artwork, and are now trying to advertise this game as “Part One” even though they had PRE-ORDERS for this game up and changed this literally on the DAY OF RELEASE.

HOWEVER, THAT'S NOT IT. Not only did they neglect to inform people that the game was split into two parts until the last day, but they also INCREASED the price from $29.99 to $39.99 last minute with no warning or announcement. You may be thinking, “That's because $29.99 was the pre-order price,” but you would be WRONG. The game on the Meta store has ALSO INCREASED even though it's still only available for pre-order.

The game now sits mixed on the Steam page. It has been marked as “gold” since December 6th, which means it was completely “finished,” yet nothing was ever said about it being part one.

i’m like just, confused.

i know fanboyism exists, but this is just extreme bro.

the quest 3 is OBJECTIVELY better than the Index, at a much cheaper price.

Index had it’s time, but it’s very outdated nowadays, and the quality is severely inferior to the Quest 3.

actually recommending the Index over the Quest 3 to people feels very weird, and disingenuous.

Also, theres actually people who say that the Index is somehow much better than the Quest 3, and that you should still buy it nowadays NEW instead of a Quest 3 WHAT

it’s just mind boggling, honestly. EDIT: Also, i'm not saying the Index is Bad, cause it's not. It has good controllers, amazing audio, and native displayport vr But still, that doesnt make it better than the Quest 3.

Also, about the tracking being better? Sure, it is, but it requires BASE STATIONS, which are definitely annoying to have to use. The Q3's is overall much more convenient, has better lenses, has wireless capability, standalone gaming, better screens, is way less expensive, better resolution, has more accesories and ways to customize it, is somehow less heavier than the Index, much easier setup, etc.