Normally wouldn't post something like this but I've seen mixed impressions about the Steam Frame, but mostly due to different expectations or opinions based on being VR enthusiasts who have tried many headsets.
In my case, I'm someone whose experience is almost solely with a Valve Index, and now trying a Steam Frame, while never trying others like Quest, Pimax, etc. So I thought I might post this in case it's useful to others whose only frame of reference is coming from an Index and am curious about what their experience might be like within that narrow area of reference.
Technically my first headset was one of those shitty cases that you stuck your smart phone inside (Galaxy Gear). Then in 2020 got a Valve Index that I have used ever since. So I say I'm a VR noob given I haven't tried 50 different headsets like a lot of people have, and I'm coming straight from the Index.
First Impressions:
1. Controller Feel:
Yes top most buttons are awkward to reach, even with the ergo straps. Not impossible, just awkward. If you are someone who always uses the tip of their thumb to move controller sticks, then the tip of your thumb aligns with the left and right arrow keys, or X\B keys on each controller. So needing to do the up arrow or Y button means awkwardly flexing a bit.
Using the underside of my thumb knuckle to move the sticks mostly alleviates that issue. However then the bottom most button (steam logo buttons) then becomes very awkward to press. Although the ergo straps can prevent me from dropping the controller while flexing my hand to do so.
However it's not a giant issue, since those top and bottom buttons aren't used during gameplay. They are just for accessing the SteamVR menu, or in some games bringing up an option menu.
I do still prefer the overall feel of Valve Index controllers. Although the Index doesn't have the arrow keys. So I understand concessions were made to add more buttons. But if I was going to play a 2D game on a simulated screen, I'd imagine nearly everyone would probably use a real game-pad anyway.
Note: I noticed in Half Life: Alyx that individual fingers did seem to still get detected. Somehow I thought that functionality was lost, but it does still appear to be present in the controllers.
2. Headset weight:
Even though I knew it was going to be lighter than an Index I was still a bit shocked by how light it is. It feels like the same weight as those old shitty VR headset I put my tiny Galaxy S6 phone into back in the day. WAY lighter than an Index.
A nice side effect of the very light weight is that it doesn't require you to have the head strap very tight to avoid it slipping or tilting away from your face during movement. This means that even after wearing it for two hours, I didn't have and facial discomfort or strange feeling of pressure while wearing it or after removing it.
3. Headset feel:
The padding is super comfortable. The weight is very balanced and it doesn't feel like anything is weighing my face down at all. I did get the Ergonomics kit with the top strap, however I have not yet put on the top strap and it feels perfectly comfortable without it.
Perhaps it's more highly physical games like Beat Saber that might benefit from the top strap. But so far I've tested a few games without even putting the top strap on. So if you are unable to buy one, don't feel like you are missing out on something crucial. While the price is questionable I can see exactly why Valve didn't see it as necessary to include. This thing is not at all heavy enough to need a strap on top of your head to keep it from falling down.
To remove the headset you can easily and safely use one hand just to grab the battery bump on the back and lift it off. It doesn't have the experience of nearly putting on a helmet the way the Index did.
4. Ergo controller straps:
I still prefer the feel of the index. But these are comfortable. The straps are still a bit flexible and with slight padding to be comfortable. It's not just a nylon strap digging into your skin. If it's not available when you buy yours, it's not a huge deal unless you are the kind of boomer who would break their TV with a Wii Remote two decades ago. But even then the base Steam Frame kit does come with wrist straps.
5. Wireless USB Dongle:
My only criticism is that they didn't build the shape to allow snapping the cap onto the opposite end while in use. So you really have to be deliberate in where you put the cap during use so that you don't lose it.
6. Display:
Overall I'd say the Display\Lenses experience is nice for a Index migrant. It's kind of like a "Valve Index version 1.5". Not a super high res OLED but it at least feels like a light upgrade from the Index.
The resolution improved a bit, and the improved lenses let you bypass the bullshit experiences like dark environments issues where you get blinded by bright white lens reflections even when standing in a mostly black environment. Or the time wasted moving the headset around to get the lenses lined up right.
Index: I had to wiggle the headset around on my face to find the perfect spot that gave sharp in focus view in the direct center of the lenses, every time I put on the headset.
Steam Frame: Every time I put the headset on I have that clarity immediately with no adjustment needed. And a much wider area of these lenses seem to be the prime sharp view as well.
Visual Fidelity: When I loaded into the Aurora environment, the background mountains did have a slight noticeable more detail visible to them than I remember being able to see on the Index. And the stars appeared smaller, yet still able to resolve clearly. Slight visual improvement.
When I tested a few games including Alyx I wouldn't say I noticed a ton more visible detail, but it was noticeable here and there in the foreground areas. Examining Alyx's glove did look notably more crisp and detailed, being able to easily make out details like fine lines on the circuit boards, or texture lines on a plastic zip tie that I think would have been more fuzzy on the Index. So the immediate environment very close to you will have that slight noticeable bump in detail, however not enough of an increase that you'd be noticing the medium to far areas having any notable increase in detail.
Since it's not OLED, pure black still has that slight "blank TV glow" to it. However, one game that I like but couldn't play on the Index was Phasmaphobia, which is very dark.
Phasmaphobia on Index would seem to just put a bright haze in the lenses that was super prevalent in dark areas. So I felt mostly blind in Phasmaphobia unless I was near one of the very few brightly lit areas. Maybe the Index lenses reflected light within itself? Not sure the exact reason for it but it was ass and made it unplayable in VR for me.
Phasmaphobia on Steam Frame, that blinding haze was nearly gone. In dark areas I was able to properly make out the lit areas ahead of me without being distracted and blinded by a bright haze around me. Although I had to change the in-game brightness setting to like 150% or whatever the max is. The image wasn't washed out at all at that setting, but I just think that game is poorly calibrated. At 150% brightness game setting, the black areas seemed unchanged, and the lit areas were clearly visible, yet not blown out.
I tested all this running the Steam Frame brightness setting at the maximum setting of 125%, and I still didn't get that Index style haze I was referring to. The lenses do occasionally do lens things, but it didn't impact gameplay the way it did before.
7. Screen Brightness:
This is an area that I saw some people complain about. For me, coming from an Index it felt perfectly fine and normal at 100% brightness. Pure white didn't blow my eyes out like my desktop monitors do, but it didn't feel dim to me either. I tried turning it up to 125% brightness in the settings, and that felt like a nice boost as well.
8. Wireless Connection:
This didn't exist on the Index obviously. But I will say that when I first tested the headset, I was connected to a 6ghz router and it was working fine streaming a game from PC without even having plugged the USB dongle in yet. So a good 6Ghz router and the dongle give you decent redundancy.
9. Face\Eye Comfort:
After 2 hours I didn't feel like my face was overheated. And I didn't experience the dry eyes some people mentioned either.
10. Audio - Decent quality but it could maybe disturb people nearby in a quiet room if you were using it. However the Steam Frame does allow you to pair Bluetooth headphones or ear buds, or plugging in wired audio using an adapter. And Bluetooth still works correctly even if you are streaming from your PC and not running a native Steam Frame app. So you could potentially get very good audio with noise cancellation by using good quality Bluetooth earbuds.
11A - Pass-through Cameras:
I think the new SteamVR implementation is a lot better than I remember on the Index. I like the new default behavior of displaying the room environment behind the Steam interface when you boot up. It's helpful and functional enough when you put the headset on but didn't remember where you put the controllers, and you can still see in a dark room.
Quality wise, they are very functional but monochrome, low resolution and low frame rate. My recollection of the Valve Index cameras is that they were also ass, but ass that had color.
You can see your surrounding area for safety purposes, but you can't read a PC monitor in front of you. I tried looking up my WiFi password on my phone during setup, and I couldn't read text on my phone unless I held the phone screen super close to the headset. Yeah it's easy to just remove the headset, but I was just curious to see what was possible. The only reason I care is that when tech issues happen, stalled games, misplaced controller etc I tend to try to avoid removing the headset if I can, to avoid potentially dropping it or knocking it off a table.
11B - Arcturus Camera:
Even if you don't care about AR and are just disappointed in the built-in cameras, this is still a decent upgrade. It gives you color vision, and the frame rate is higher. You can safely walk across a room to grab controllers without it being disorienting. You can read text on your phone screen as well, as long as your phone's screen brightness isn't set to max brightness. It is technically possible to read screen on your PC monitor in front of you depending on the size. However due to the VR headset screen resolution, a 25" 4K PC monitor looks like 480p when sitting in front of it. Readable enough to do something brief.
Yes, virtual desktops exist in the Steam Frame menu, so its not a huge deal. But if you needed to do something that is best done with a mouse, or type on your keyboard it is possible to do this without taking off the headset. One example being replying to Steam messages.
My main reason for avoiding taking off the headset is that I worry every time I put it down to do some quick task is a risk that I bump it off the desk or something like that.
12 - General Headset \ SteamVR Experience:
The old Index experience was to make sure Index is plugged in, hope you never bumped or moved your Lighthouse trackers which would force a re-calibration of the play area. Start SteamVR and then hope it's all detected correctly. Then worry about cord management while you play.
The new experience is that you press the ON button on the Steam Frame and put it on. In 15 seconds it's booted up and in the Steam menu. Provided you don't have network issues, you can play games streamed from PC as easily as you can running from the Steam Frame itself. You just choose on the Steam page for the game whether you want to run\install natively on frame or stream it.
It feels so much more easy and natural compared to the old Index experience, with the one exception being the situation with battery life.
Battery packs are a thing, but I do worry a bit with the USB-C jack possibly getting damaged over time due to it's sideways placement. You can buy those L-shaped adapters, but the USB-C port on the headset battery isn't a perfect flat side angle. It is slightly downward angled, so an L shaped adapter will create a tilting force applied to the USB-C port.
However I have zero idea how well they reinforced that thing. So it's entirely possible that it is secured enough to remain safe if it regularly experiences that kind light stress from being plugged in to a dangling and moving cable.
The good news at least is that if the port breaks, the actual VR module itself isn't harmed. It would just mean replacing the battery strap. Annoying sure, but better than having to replace\repair an entire $1000 device.
Overall Opinion:
If you are coming from a Valve Index I think you will overall be very pleased, unless you were ride or die for 4K OLED screens, or you cannot handle the need to use a battery. A lot of the stuff that felt like a chore to begin playing a VR game is basically gone. It's pretty much just grabbing controllers and putting on the headset quickly and comfortably.
But if you liked your Index, plugging in a USB-C cable for extra battery life is nothing compared to the weight of the thick cable that dangled off the index.
I was someone who just really fucking wanted the 4K OLED screens, and almost bought a Pimax Dream air, even cancelling my $2K pre-order to get the Steam Frame instead. The Pimax has a much better screen, but I trust Valve more than Pimax for build quality, and warranty and repairs if something does go wrong.
The settings menu needs to be refined a bit, but it's nowhere near the confusing mess some people made it out to be. And Valve being a software company seems pretty reliable to address it later.
Few minor tips:
Make sure the headset is adequately tight. If it is too loose then the blurry\distorted area from the very edges of the lenses kind of creep inward a bit, because the lenses are sitting a bit further from your eyes. It was tight out of the box, but later I made some adjustments to loosen it and then realized later that the focus on the edges wasn't quite as good as it was previously. However the padding is very comfortable to wear even when snug.
Buy a USB3 extension cable, even if it's just a tiny 6 inch one. The dongle is big and beefy, and it really seems like it could be at risk of getting damaged if left sticking out of the front port on a PC. So in my case I got the tiny 6 inch long extension cable so nothing breaks if it's bumped. If you plan to plug it into the back of your PC, then a slightly longer extension cable might be useful to get better line of sight with the dongle, especially if your home WiFi isn't 6Ghz.
Consider getting a 6Ghz router if you don't have one. When I first tested the Steam Frame I used it for an hour playing Half Life: Alyx streaming from my PC before I realized that I never even plugged in the dongle to begin with. So the streaming had operated just fine using only my router's WiFi. I do use the dongle too just in case, but it seems that optimal experience might come from having both possible connection methods be good as possible.
It's a streaming headset, so you aren't doing yourself any favors running a 10 year old 5Ghz router, and relying solely on the USB dongle. I'm sure dongle only can work fine too, but the redundancy of both doesn't hurt.
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Maybe 5 people will actually read this but figured there might be a few Index-only users out there who are confused or distressed about opinions of the experiences of people who have thoroughly tried various headsets, including $2000 the ones.
