Valve’s Steam Frame was finally announced today, and initial lottery to have an opportunity to buy one will be open until September 17th. Some of the biggest complaints are around the low quality, monochrome, default mixed reality passthrough cameras. But Valve collaborated with the Arcturus Vision Camera team to add a port that would enable their $149 camera peripheral to the Steam Frame in order to upgrade the mixed reality passthrough quality. I had a chance to speak with founder Jeff Powers to get some more context on the camera, the additional Gaussian Splatting capture capabilities, and the process of collaborating with Valve to add this port.
I watched a lot of reviews today, and I enjoyed getting an overview from Tested’s Norm Chan and Linus Tech Tips, VR developer Anton Hand had some pointed critiques around the Steam Frame controllers quality prioritizing 2D games over VR games, Gamers Nexus had some innovative tests comparing controller latency and privacy policies, Cas and Chary XR did a great overview from a VR gaming and gaming POV, CNET’s Scott Stein’s brief review focused on the Steam Frame as a standalone device (however most of the feedback is that it is more of streaming device for PCVR), and ThrillSeeker dug into a bit more of how the Steam Frame is a proper Linux machine with a lot of optimism around that it means to finally have an XR device that is a rootable open platform. A lot of the feedback was that the ergonomic kits and charger were also likely add-ons that were suggested to make the device even more comfortable via the top strap, and a charger that could be plugged in as the battery life was also not the greatest, but could be solved with a portable battery charger.
The default camera is also not the greatest, and so given all of the things that need updates, then going with the smaller 256GB version rather than the 1TB version means the price difference could be applied to these peripherals to make the overall experience better. And listen to Powers talk about the Steam Frame, what the Arcturus Vision Camera provides, and what types of additional volumetric capture solutions they’ve been developing for it.
This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon.
Music: Fatality
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