In case you missed it, Valve announced a load of new hardware this week, including Second Stab, a Steam controller, and a long-rumored new VR headset. But often the new means the old goes out, and perhaps inevitably, the company has confirmed that its previous headset, the Valve Index, is no more.
Valve’s Lawrence Yang told It’s “no longer making” Index, which we called “the best desktop VR ever” when it launched in 2019. This index came around the same time as the Oculus Quest and its promise of an affordable all-in-one future for VR. In contrast, the Valve Index was still a high-end tied instrument for hardcore enthusiasts, the price of which reflected that.
We don’t know yet how much the Steam Frame will cost, but it certainly seems like Valve is making a play here for the more casual VR crowd, as well as those who want to play demanding 3D titles. You can stream flatscreen and VR games from your PC or Steam Machine using a wireless adapter, but the Steam Frame is also a standalone device, backed by a built-in Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset and 16GB of RAM. Valve is also supporting Android games, in what appears to be a move to entice VR developers to bring their Quest games to Steam.
To track your activities in the virtual space, external lighthouse base stations are relied upon, which means you’ll have to go through a slightly more laborious setup process to play the Roomscale VR game. Consumer VR has since moved toward built-in sensors, and it looks like Valve wants to leave its Lighthouse in the past as well, the company has confirmed. The Verge That they will not be supported on Steam Frame. Instead the new headset has four high-resolution monochrome cameras for inside-out tracking, as well as infrared LEDs on the outside that help with tracking in dark environments.