Separate wifi 6 modem for pcvr streaming and a bobovr batterystrap, couldn't imagine frame being much better than this. Most importantly nothing to do with Meta.

Basically, without any optimization, I was able to launch my work-in-progress Mafia PC VR motion controls aiming mod directly on Steam Frame. And please note that it was a usual PC x86, not an ARM build, without any optimization whatsoever - just copied and launched on a Steam Frame (with AI resolving some compatibility layer and motion controls issues in <2 hours). And it actually works, which means, if optimized right, making PCVR standalone mods for Steam Frame will be a breeze, and what's even better, there is a high chance you will not lose compatibility with other mods you want to install on the same title at the same time. The real power of AI-ed Linux :)

Im still on the waitlist with no projected date/reservation in sight, so Im not super worried about having wasted money (yet..?)

However, I keep getting notifications over and over again of people saying theirs like randomly bricked, (particularly after not much use) one lens appears darker or lighter than the other, the battery life falling way below people’s expectations, one controller just not working, so on and so forth.

I still love the idea of getting one, and I’m also assuming/hoping as these things keep coming up getting and taken care of through support they will make improvements along the way. Saying that, is this standard procedure? Maybe Im just lacking general experience or knowledge on new hardware. Does anyone know or have numbers on how rare these occurrences are or if they’re unusually frequent?

I’ve only had PSVR (original) so no matter what I go for it’s pretty much going to be an upgrade lol. And I have a fairly strong pc with a 5070ti and everything more or less matching that power. Is the power not much of an issue but I just have to expect to stay plugged in most of the time if I wanna play for an hour or longer? I know the frame is powerful itself compared to other more readily available gear out there.

I know im kinda rambling but I’m somewhat on the fence about continuing to hold out for one and I guess just looking for overall input from anyone on if I should grab something else, keep waiting, are issues likely to be improved moving forward, how likely is it something will go wrong, etc. Thanks in advance

Good day, fellow waitlisters, reservers and... Owners!

I have found locally several steam frame boxes, sealed, can be checked physically, for a lower price that what Valve offers (local market here is not very fierce, but I am a waitlister, not even an approximate date I don't have in EU region)

Hence, my question is that if I would get that frame and down the line I have issues with the frame, can I contact Valve and ask for RMA/valid assistance?

The waitlist is simply too long. I've gone and left one more spot for someone, hope they get it before 2028, but I was aiming to get a VR headset in 2026 and the Frame is clearly not going to be anywhere near that. I've gone for the Pimax Dream Air. Hope that gambling on them won't be any more painful than waiting.

Sayonara Framers, it's been fun.

Pretty cool piece of news here for anybody who likes making accessories for the Frame.

As the title says, my Frame has absolutely no signs of life, it was working fine (fine is relative, the software is a nightmare) and suddenly it started having charging issues and now it's so dead that I get no LEDs nor do I get the low battery indicated either, it's just a paperweight now. I've tried holding the power button for a long while, I tried cleaning the connector that connects the port to the headset, and I tried to access the BIOS, but none of this did anything.

I've seen some similar posts as of recent about this issue, so it seems like there might have been a bad update that is bricking headsets. Has anyone else encountered this issue, would be nice to get some other voices here so maybe this can be fixed.

As a sidenote here for anyone who hasn't gotten a headset yet, I have gotten attacked for saying this before but, please do not buy this headset, the software is just so bad, it needed another year at least in the oven to be ready.

I am excited to buy my Steam frame once I get notified it’s in stock. Mainly because I’m hoping the dongle it comes with will make wireless pcvr very straight forward, and be a nonsense free setup process.

You should be able to plug the dongle in and get straight into SteamVR as soon as you turn on your headset and PC without buying anything else.

And you also won’t need to plug a wire in so you could probably get turn on the headset and get into SteamVR on your pc almost instantly.

With the Steam Frame you shouldn’t need to rely on third party software, buy a router, or buy any extra crap just to get yourself on SteamVR connected to your pc.

Hopefully the Steam Frame’s software and dongle will simply and speed up the setup process for pcvr

You have to pay $20 to use virtual desktop everytime you buy a new headset and I get tired of buying all this extra separate stuff just to get my Quest 3 wirelessly connected to my pc.

Thats ridiculous

Totally one to advocate for patience but… why even offer a “reservation” slot when the product won’t be available for approximately 5 months from release.

While I appreciate the update so I don’t continuously check the page for availability I’m confused how they managed to confuse the process this much. Similarly why bother adding people to the reservatiion list from wait list given the above

Did the SteamMachine reservation work similarly?

UPDATE: the report , all logs and analysis scripts are too long to be included.
-----------------
Long story short, I found out that the PMIC only allows battery packs being charged when battery temperature drops below 42.5. But Frame’s firmware is allowing charging when plugged in . So when you plug your Frame right after playing it, means the battery temperature can be above 50 degrees, then this is what gonna happen:
the Frame wants to be charged, pulling 1A from the charger to power the system and to charge the battery. PMIC found the battery temperature is too high to safely charge it, immediately cut the charging power, the current drops from 1A to 0A. Which means, you were expecting the battery to be saved from ~5% by the charger, but once you got the charger on, 9s after, it cuts off charging for 2s, it’s like 1A for 9s, then 0A for 2s, then repeat. But every that 2s your Frame has a chance of sudden death (by death I mean unexpected shutdown at low power and being flagged as SPML in system logs, but this doesn’t mean permanently damage or brick, it’s my bad using the word death, I’m sorry about this, but it’s still very not good for the Frame at that low battery level), the first 2s is the most deadly 2s (because it barely got charged but have to suffer a sudden voltage drop at the already super low battery level). That the reason why so many people found their Frames won’t charge when plugged it in after playing it for a while.
PS: when battery temperature is lower than 42.5, the Frame would start charging at 2.7A, so better give your Frame’s battery a good active air flow after finishing play it.
PS2: about playing with a power bank, idk, but I’ve played with a power bank when streaming and even with that damned loop, it works, but possibly because streaming only draws ~10W of power, which is still affordable for the 9s of 1A@15V charging status, but obviously the power bank and your (and mine) Frame’s battery was very HOT.
PS3 before I go to sleep:
let me be clear, the most clean way is do not play you Frame to lower than 10% battery left, therefore you can just plug it in and let the 9-2 loop starts until the battery temperature go under 42.5, and if you have ~10% of battery, I think it would be ok, because mine still died when I plugged it in at 7% battery, I plugged it in, heard the fan buzzing for several seconds, then fan went silent, not like the normal power off that would rise the rpm for 5s before shutting down but suddenly went silent, you won’t want that happen to your Frame.
And besides that, since I got so many people seeing this post, let me say another thing that really killed me for days: the mid-battery sudden death, it’s when you’re playing a standalone game then suddenly the Frame shuts down itself, just black screen and instantly power off, then you reboot it found there’s still ~half of the battery, and this happens and happens with basically nothing you can do to prevent it, reseat the gasket? done it multiple times, even brushed the connector with an eraser. and I’ve found and tested the solution: limit the CPU (X4 and A720, no A520) frequency by 15%, it worked and I’ve played games that had triggered the mid-battery sudden death several times in a row and with the implementation the game sessions were safely done from full charge to 5% battery. So in the end it’s not the connector, not the battery, not the thermal, but the X4 and A720s’ frequency-spike that triggers low VPH and BCL level 2 at half battery life which matches a lower battery voltage. The minus 15% of frequency of the implementation is just an initial conservative value, I may make another post once I finished the optimization and maybe make a little tool to help with quick multi-level frequency lock. Note that it seems only affects some people including me, if you haven’t met this problem and can always safely play a standalone game from full charge to 10% alert, congrats buddy. But if you have suffered this like me, this method is our cure.

Disclaimer: English is not my native language, so please bear with me if there are any phrasing mistakes!

Hey everyone,

I recently completed a DIY mod to improve the grip and knuckle straps on my controllers and wanted to share the setup and notes with you all.

1. Using Silicone Rubber Bands for the Grip Mod

• Instead of simply stuffing/pinching the original straps directly under the battery cover, I recommend using silicone rubber bands (regular rubber bands can work as a budget temporary substitute, but they degrade quickly and need monthly replacement).
• Two main advantages over the standard strap-tuck method:
  1. Better Grip & Fit: The elasticity of the band allows the strap to conform tightly to your hand and the controller body.
  2. Less Strain on the Cover: Silicone bands are easily compressible, which causes significantly less bending stress and crease wear when closing the battery cover.

2. Current Setup

• Currently pulling the strap up through the controller's adjustment loop for tension and fit.

3. Next Step / Future Improvement Idea

• Add another silicone band near the bottom contact point of the controller without removing the original strap cord.
• Goal: Improve lower grip ergonomics and provide active elastic rebound/pull-back.
• Reference / inspiration video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksFfR7mVegA

I have a valid meta account with games purchased, is there anyway to get those games onto the frame? I know not directly but I’m seeing apps like Frame port and side quest but they don’t really show what I’m asking about.

Guten Tag,

Ich habe einen Waffenkoffer von Umarex umfunktioniert zum Tragecase für das Steam Frame, da wackelt nichts und der Koffer ist Wassergeschützt.

Bin nun froh das Unterwegsproblem gelöst zu haben und hoffe damit Inspiration zu geben, für jemanden mit dem selben Problem.

Beste Grüße

I got the reservation email and I heard people saying that it could take up to 2 months to get a purchase email and I was really worried and kept checking the frame page everyday and now instead of the "We will email you the purchase thingy" now it just says "2027" wtf? Hasnt the wait been long enough??? This is Aus btw

I tried the first option but it’s still weird pressing the grip button with my ring finger.

As a lefty, I find the d-pad on the left controller particularly aggravating. When playing games like shooters, usually movement is bound to your non-dominant hand and then weapon / character actions are bound to your dominant hand. I find that when I have common actions bound to the left controller like jump on d-pad down and reload to d-pad left (which is often the auto applied quest bindings for left handed controls), I very often manage to accidentally press both actions at once since the d-pad rocks ever so slightly, especially when pressing d-pad left. In most games, you can rebind them to d-pad up/down or left/right instead to mostly avoid this, but then the controls are just less comfortable overall.

It feels like the d-pad needs to have a system wide debounce feature to prevent this or something. I get why Valve wanted to make the controllers more like a standard gamepad for flat gaming, but this problem makes me wish they would have at least separated the d-pad buttons like on the switch controllers.

Here's the thing. I agree that most people who come on here are coming to complain. And I didn't want to be one of those. But I'm really starting to question whether I should keep my Steam Frame and I think it's worth being honest about it. If anything, this might help some waitlisters feel less bad about waiting.

My first VR headset was the Rift-S, which I loved. I enjoyed VR so much I was happy to plop down the significant sum to buy the Index some time in 2022. I loved it even more. The field of view, the controllers, that incredible sound! Only thing I didn't like were the fresnel lenses and the god rays. When I first put it on I thought something was wrong. Eventually I came to disdain the cable. And I worried that some day one of my two lighthouses would die, or my controller would start to drift in a way that I couldn't fix, and that would be it. So when the Frame was announced I planned for that to be my next VR upgrade. I won the wait list lottery and got my Frame two weeks ago. The hope was that the Frame would be like the Index, if not a bit better visually, and that I wouldn't have to worry about the cable or the light houses. That's what I wanted. A cable-less Index so I could continue to play PCVR (stream) - very little interest in playing local VR.

Right out of the box it was a bit of a mess. The primary thing I wanted to do with my frame was stream from my PC, not run games locally. I watched all the reviews and was excited to try out the foveated rendering and the new dongle.

As far as I can tell, the foveated rendering works great. However, the connectivity to the dongle is the biggest tech-related shit-show I've ever witnessed.

Sometimes it connects to your Frame. Sometimes it doesn't. Even with wifi streaming turned off, I've found my dongle will allow me to connect cleanly, straight from a start-up, oh, I don't know, maybe 10% of the time? One in ten connection attempts it works. In all other attempts it's a stupid game of trying to connect to Steam VR, it not working, restarting Steam, restarting the headset, until eventually it works. And that's WITH both the Frame and Steam VR being in Beta. It helped improve it, but not enough to actually work reliably.

My complaint with the Index was it was annoying getting it "set up" and ready to play, but the amount of downtime I have before running a successful session with the Frame is three times as lengthy and frustrating.

Connection issues aside, I am very impressed with the visuals. They are an upgrade (though not a massive one) from the Index. The lack of fresnel god rays is a god send. I'm fine with the controllers. I do miss the Index's sound. These speakers are not great. The battery life doesn't bug me much as my VR sessions were usually about an hour anyways. The other thing worth noting, coming from the Index, is the inside out tracking of the Frame, while good, is noticably "floaty". It's hard to articulate the feeling. It just feels a bit floaty. Going back-and-forth with the Index/Frame you feel how rock-solid everything feels in the Index, whereas in the Frame the whole image will frequently judder and shudder and the environment doesn't feel as locked down.

My plan was to sell my Index to pay for the Frame, but I'm having doubts. I keep telling myself that I just need to give it time, that Valve will sort out these bugs and connectivity will improve.

But I can't help but feel like I'm kicking a perfectly good headset out of bed (Index) to make room for a sketchy headset that has made a very poor first impression. I feel like the longer I wait to sell the Index the more it's value will go down. So now is the time to sell it, if I am. But I do worry about the base stations... Just went on Ebay to check the price of a replacement, and it's ridiculous. So I guess I need to get used to the Frame and hope it improves. It should, but... I just feel shitty shunting my perfectly good Index for this garbage Frame experience.

Can anyone relate?

https://www.tycotech3dprinting.com/products/steam-frame-knuckle-grips-much-better-89695?_su_rec=XMot673VNynQGoUxv4-vYBcM9p8lGY-5Td17mDSkVC9KoAByBHwP0bT7j2MSbN70cOeZpWYI9D7mhA_tO7UTVoCXiSXyoHzcCRSDnBi3FFi5q0akikgqoze2LFMq9oe_jHHNrNb0lecwvfap1eLHRM_76Rnrre41zIW9w245kxbcz2fa9CXu3qWCeHkomPkMQFpqiBbJQZ0PhRtAhv-DmQLNiglX685SLOQ0SR848NZ6TTAo2mgoprJTacrjhOJindzG02rwasvpdj8zdJpBcpmdoIkkxHZ7bq97rFaaBEv6cQgwYeUHF5Du0GM1nTeGZ2SvdjnKIGbYOiJGB9h70bNcsJT11gCPVv3FrcwHiwa6FCyQPSCRRpNblF94QShf6ZYsN6zCIsZkGLJtp40&_su_rec_id=339246af-5b7d-4156-b75c-5f1f8aa0ba20-1791825029

Now for the hopefully shorter wait, never got an email tho but it did say waitlist instead of reservation.

Is anyone else getting really bad battery life? I'm wondering if I've got something set up wrong or an incorrect setting

I only seem to get just over an hour of battery life, both when standalone, and when streaming from a PC (which I understand should have a lot more). The only non-standard software I'm running is QuestLHSync to sync playspaces, which I'm going to try uninstalling next, but aside from that my headset is all standard? I'm using the multi-link streaming thing over both the wireless adapter and my wifi network (I know that will impact it but surely not this much right?)

Is anyone else getting this? Or should I raise a ticket with steam support? I know standalone battery life is bad, but even when streaming this feels a bit absurd. I'm just wondering if there's a setting I missed or need to change

Lots of the videos I've seen are definitely a transparent dark red. Others do look fully opaque gloss black. Is the black an illusion of some reviews lighting? Are they different colors depending on model or region? Or random based on when/where they were assembled. It's there any correlation between the color of faceplate and performance or big issues?

I've come across an odd issue and I'm hoping someone has a nice easy solution that mostly revolves around me being dumb.

I'm trying to lay fallout 4vr, it loads and plays just fine, streaming from my PC. But....

There's no keyboard interface, so I can't enter my name and progress. Meaning I'm stuck pre-war on the vault tec specials page.

I've tried my pc keyboard, I've tried connecting the keyboard via Bluetooth to the frame, I've tried switching to dashboard to open the frames keyboard, but nothing will enable me to enter a name.

I'm really looking forward to playing this again.

After all those 'bricked' frame. I'm kinda worried so ill take zero chance and back to stable it is.

Preamble:

Back in 2008 I tried those active 3D glasses for enhanced gaming. That never really panned out due to many varying technical problems, but fast forward to 2020 and I bought my first VR headset, a Samsung Odyssey+ for $150 CAD. It was cheap enough for me to make the plunge without ever having tried VR. The first time I put it on, even though it was a "middling" headset, I knew VR would be the path for gaming enthusiasts. It's simply immersive in a way that nothing else compares to. Like one of those good Bethesda or Obsidian RPGs that allow you to really do anything you want, murder any NPC even if they're critical to the story, or loot the boss before you fight them so they have no weapons and armor - a good VR experience offers that kind of freedom just by virtue of being in VR. Whether it's checking your blind spot in a sim racing game, experiencing the void of space in OLED immersion, or using your hands to draw spells in a Skyrim mod, VR is an evolution to gaming immersion that is here to stay, even if it comes with roadblocks and performance requirements that give even enthusiasts cause for concern. And to say nothing of horror games. So, aside from the Odyssey+ that has treated me well for 6 years, I recently purchased a Quest 3 second-hand. It actually arrived on the same day as my Frame. I knew it was time to step up my VR gaming, I just didn't know if I wanted to pay $450 CAD or $1600 CAD to do it.

My experience over 10 days:

I really wanted to like the Steam frame. Ergonomically, the headset is pretty good. Major points there, but it's far from perfect. While it doesn't cause you to sweat like the Quest 3 does with the cloth gasket, it feels like it gets hotter than the Quest while it's running, even just streaming VR games. This may be due to the fan blowing some of the air into the eye cavity. Also, while the battery at the back of the head is great for distributing the weight, I question anyone who said they found it comfortable to lie in bed and game with the Frame. Even sitting in my chair, I have to be careful not to lean back into my headrest lest a hard battery dig into my head. And while it never bothered me during gaming, there needs to be a light blocker in the nose slot. The fact that it's a $90 CAD accessory is mind-blowing. I assume Valve wasn't able to source as many accessory kits as Frames, and so they split the items to avoid delaying the Frame knowing not 100% of customers would opt for the kit. But it's still a bad look for a premium product.

Controllers were a mixed bag for me, but more bad than good if I'm being honest. The grip gets tedious to hold while using the trigger. There are too many buttons, so that when doing "VR" gaming, you have more buttons than you need and they just get in the way. Like in Pavlov, "mag release" is one of two buttons on the Quest, or one of four buttons on the Frame. Yes the Switch controller also has four buttons on the controller, but I just don't find it pleasing ergonomically alongside the 3 triggers for simulating hand gestures. And I think that also caused the controller to be a bit bulkier than needed, so again for an action like loading a magazine into a weapon the controllers are more likely to smash into each other at this width. And lastly, it's hit or miss whether you see the controllers, but maybe that's a setting I could have checked.

Audio I have no complaints about. While not particularly immersive, it's perfectly serviceable and quite impressive that you get good volume from speakers that are nowhere near your ears.

Battery is unfortunately another weak point. It just drains very quickly, not much to be said there, but it especially feels like it drains fast because I spent more time trying to get games to run than just playing them. If I start trying to play at 80%, by the time I try to change key bindings from the VR menu, realize I can't, and give up, I'm at 72%. One run of Brotato on the flat screen took me from 60% to 30%. Like EV owners with range anxiety, seeing the battery drop this quickly makes you start thinking about getting to a checkpoint and saving, or trying to tweak performance settings. It's not the end of the world, and solutions will become available, but the fact that the Frame OS is so un-optimized it doesn't run a proper saver/performance curve based on what I'm doing is a huge missed opportunity. Don't make me have to apply all my battery-saving tweaks manually while I'm browsing games and settings, and then apply the performance mode while gaming. That should have been streamlined out of the box.

Performance for me boils down to two aspects - visual quality & latency/bandwidth. For latency and bandwidth, I didn't think the dongle did anything my Wifi 6 router didn't do. And this is literally a router/modem combo my ISP provides, not a fancy $700 router. I am sure there are settings to tweak and improvements to come, but I feel like maybe the dongle should have been an optional accessory for people without Ethernet connections to their router and line-of-sight between router and headset. So while I didn't run any qualitative tests, I didn't notice any improvement between the Quest 3 + Wifi 6 router vs. Frame + Wifi 6 router and dongle. Visual acuity, likewise, felt pretty similar. I wouldn't give the edge to either system here. Maybe the Frame had more visual sharpness drop-off in the peripheral vision, which I think is related to the foveated rendering and could be turned off, but it was pretty disappointing to see, especially because my main reason for moving away from the Odyssey+, which is still a serviceable sim headset, is that text is blurry outside of the sweet spot, and that's exactly what the out-of-the-box experience for the Frame provided. Playing Brotato flat screen for example, the health bar normally in the top-left of the screen was unreadable during regular gameplay.

My final gripe came when I tried to use the Frame like a computer, as it's advertised to be. If it's a computer, it's one with a very limited number of ports (1x USB) and for whatever reason, no ability to display a mouse cursor if one is connected to it. Also, for a VR headset, it's unclear to me why I can't watch VR videos on it straight from the desktop. It's something I could do on my Odyssey+ in 2020 right from Windows 10 (ironically I can't do it anymore since the death of WMR, but still, this technology is ancient). People have showcased some really cool multi-screen setups within the Frame, and maybe I'm just in over my head, but I found the interface quite clunky to dock screens, switch between them with my inputs, and free float there to exactly where I wanted them to be. Combined with the poor peripheral sharpness and that wasn't an experience I could see myself using. That said, booting up Firefox, logging into Plex, and watching 30 minutes of TV on my Frame made my 75" TV look tiny by comparison.

So overall, I think Valve has a competing product to the Quest 3, with neither really coming out on top, but I can't justify the $1150 CAD more the Frame commands with this many imperfections. I know the Quest is subsidized by the most evil company on the planet, and is stealing things I can't even imagine, but considering it spends its evenings in a box and I'm trying to block it from accessing WAN, I think I can live with that tradeoff while I wait for something like a Frame 2.