Everyone is missing maybe the biggest point - this isn't just a VR device. You can run some/many (depending on your library) of your regular Steam games on a 'flat screen' inside the VR environment, which makes this much more like a SteamDeck with a giant private screen for a lot of people.
This machine runs Linux, it comes with KDE. This is the open Apple Vision Pro alternative that you can use as a real computer.
It comes with a black and white passthrough camera but you can add on a 5K color one.
There's ongoing work for a full Plasma XR mode, so you aren't restricted to a "virtual desktop" experience: https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/merge_requests/8671
This is one of the main selling points for me. I threw my CV1 in the trash when facebook required a login. I want to see what OpenXR apps are like. Is freecad and blender usable? I want to tinker with gaussian splatting. When finger tracking starts to develop can I reasonably use it for input without controllers? Could this ever be a practical replacement for a six monitor desk?
Also, my simracing seat has been very lonely. I'm so happy that there is an HMD running arch that gives the user root.
> Is freecad and blender usable?
Blender works in VR (using any OpenXR compatible headset). To view scenes in VR, you can use the free built-in VR Scene Inspector addon. To edit and create scenes in VR, you can use the Freebird XR addon for Blender (https://freebirdxr.com/).
Fingers crossed for OpenXR working properly in Steam Frame! In which case Blender and other OpenXR-compatible apps will work too.
Disclaimer: I'm the author of Freebird XR, a VR editing addon for Blender.
valve whole business model is invasive drm tho.
far from claiming they are as low as meta, but that is their business model which never gets mentioned in this comparison, leaving readers to confuse gabe newel with RMS as some freedom authority
DRM isn't really the story with Valve. Their business model is offer good service. Part of that is not being hostile to users. Users don't want to be spied on and have their data sold, so Valve doesn't do that. People want autonomy over their hardware, so they give them that. It's even in their marketing material for the steam machine. The frame is a computer running arch. If you want to 100% opt out of Steam and write your own driver stack, they're not standing in your way. That is uniquely pro-user and freedom in the tech industry. Also, their open source initiatives with proton and fex should not be discounted.
If there's a morally grey stone to turn over then imo it's the not-gambling-wink-microtransactions and even then it's no more predatory than what is common in the gaming industry.
There is a real danger if Valve ever gets sold in bad hands - the only hope is Gabe Newell living long enough or find a good successor who can continue having a majority stake in the company.
Their business model is cloud rent and lootboxes - I love their approach to service, hardware and Linux but let's not pretend they're noble.
loot boxes, sure but how is cloud rent amoral/ignoble?
> valve whole business model is invasive drm
As much as I like gog and their game distribution model and buy most games there, this is a huge exaggeration and actually false. A game studio/publisher does not have to use DRM in steam and many of them don't. Examples are Larian (baldur's gate 3), cd project red (witcher, cyberpunk), and quite a few small and big studios that don't. Basically afaik most games that are in both gog and steam don't have DRM in steam. DRM is far from steam's fault, it is game studios/publishers that have pushed that, long before steam too.
Valves bread and butter has been their distribution channel. Before Valve, there was no major player that provided a seamless gaming download experience. Anyone who’ve gamed in early 2000s understand the pain point of downloading and correctly installing patches from a daemon site.
Valve’s DRM is just about the least invasive and easiest to crack DRM systems on the market. The only way to be less invasive is to not have DRM at all. Obviously that’s preferable, but Valve’s setup is one that keeps publishers on the platform: provide a basic DRM system and allow publishers to add more if they want. If you don’t like what someone like Ubisoft does on the platform you’ve got plenty of other options (and third party DRM is clearly labeled within Steam).
I don’t think people see Gabe Newell the way you describe. They just appreciate that Valve makes business decisions that have basic respect for their customer base. They are fully aware that he’s a billionaire yacht aficionado.
Capitalism and likability are not mutually exclusive, it’s just that so many capitalists have taken the route of maximizing serfdom.
> Valve’s DRM is just about the least invasive and easiest to crack DRM systems on the market.
In fact, their own documentation spells this out specifically[0]:
> The Steam DRM wrapper by itself is not an anti-piracy solution. The Steam DRM wrapper protects against extremely casual piracy (i.e. copying all game files to another computer) and has some obfuscation, but it is easily removed by a motivated attacker.
0: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/drm
Their model is DRM, but they have no vendor lock-in (in theory, at least). You can use a Valve product (or non-valve product) and never use Steam, or use Steam on any of the 3 major OS's. You can't say the same for an apple product.
I say in theory because yes: Steam in reality has a monopoly in the PC gaming market. And while many games are on multiple stores, odds are many games will only be on Steam. That's a more invisible hand form of a walled garden, but there's definitely an argument to be made there.
Being able to comfortably sit back / lie down and work is an interesting proposition. The Apple Vision Pro is too bulky and expensive to carry that whole category on its own, they need an 'Android equivalent'. But I think Apple messed this up by creating an absolute patent minefield (some 5k patents for AVP features iirc).
Wow imagine we can have masses of people lie back and work. Think of how small we could make the cubicles
You know those drawers they have at morgues?
Reinventing server racks from first principles
Commuting would be much nicer on quality ball-bearing drawer runners.
This almost sounds like a movie I saw once. "The Matrices" maybe ?
Office capsules!
We meet in VR meeting rooms and at the end of the day, we’re safely delivered back to the parking lot via capsule shuttle.
I'm looking forward to the day when we can implant a chip in our neck that will override the senses. Imagine having your body doing a hard workout session while your mind was at work or on vacation
But everyone has to be in the office. For, you know, collaboration. And face-to-face interactions.
Ssssh, WeWork investors could be reading this thread!
If you think this is a joke and humanity can’t be that evil then look up the the „Brookes Ship“
> Brookes was reportedly allowed to stow 454 African captives, by allowing a space of 6 feet (1.8 m) by 1 foot 4 inches (0.41 m) to each man, 5 feet 10 inches (1.78 m) by 1 foot 4 inches (0.41 m) to each woman, and 5 feet (1.5 m) by 1 foot 2 inches (0.36 m) to each child. However, the poster's text alleges that a slave trader confessed that before the Act, Brookes had carried as many as 609 captives at one time.
WeWork 2.x any time now ;)
> Android equivalent
That's the samsung galaxy xr which is cheaper and lighter but it's not good enough run high resolution content for long periods without thermal throttling
The thing is, the AVP has a ton of quality-of-life features, eg relating to gestures, and most of them locked behind patents. Looks like we'll have to wait 20 years before other devices will be able to match it (or whatever the expiry date is on those patents).
That makes sense. I always wondered why nobody copied their gaze + tap interactions. That seems way too basic to grant a patent for...
That’s how it works with the Quest 3 on an updated OS. If you’re using hand tracking then you gaze + tap thumb and finger together to select, or pinch and hold to grab a corner for resizing or a border for dragging.
That’s not how it works, there is no gaze support. I just double checked and couldn’t find it in any Accessibility or Experimental settings. Apologies for the misinfo. (Also no inward-facing cameras ofc)
What I was thinking of was on iPhone. It was Eye Tracking + Dwell for selecting.
Hands act as a pointer on the Quest, with a pinch action to select and drag.
afaik the AVP has a dedicated Lidar sensor for gesture detection. I'd say Apple has managed to patent more basic stuff than that (pinch-to-zoom, rounded corners,...)
Oh, that'd make sense. I think the quest 3 has a depth sensor, but they mostly use that for room setup. I don't even think it has IR emitters for low light. But that's the age old question about patents, if they're being granted too much they stifle innovation and competition instead of the opposite... (which is the point you were making as well).
On the quest 3, I've felt like the screen is just a bit too low res to use comfortably as a monitor anyways, so I imagine the Frame won't be much different. The better weight distribution should help a lot though.
Unless you live in a walk in freezer !
Looking at the vendor page for that 5K colour camera, the page directly says they only support Windows and macOS. :( :( :(
> The Arcturus Vision apps include Arcturus Vision Camera for recording and playing 5K HDR spatial video, Arcturus Vision Gaussian XR for exploring 3D Gaussian splats, and Sync for transferring recordings to Windows or Mac (with conversion for other players on Mac).
https://arcturus.vision
I've emailed their support to ask, just in case. :)
It's an open Linux box, using standard interfaces. You can use ffmpeg and scp to transcode and transfer, or whatever else you're comfortable with. Even if Arcturus provided an app, most Linux users probably wouldn't use it.
Is that a guess, or do you know for sure? :)
There's an Arcturus interview on YouTube that shows them doing it.
Awesome, thanks. :)
I believe gamer’s nexus showed it working
Thanks. I skimmed the video as it was late at night, and didn't notice it. I'd better take a proper look at the video. :)
So it may be a good wirk machine to use during long flights, with a compact wireless keyboard.
Unless you fly first class, using a laptop on a plane is painful.
The question here is whatever Steam Frame displays resolution is sufficient to work with text. So far only mass produced device that was really suitable is a Vision Pro.
So far all reviews I've seen been centered around gaming and not work.
It is said that human eyes can resolve down to 1 minute of arc(1 MOA or 1/60 degrees). Each eye has about 160 degrees of HFOV and 125 degrees of VFOV.
From there, you can work out requisite resolution for desktop replacing VR googles: 11K per eye.
The catch is that human eyes actually only have ~1 degree of full resolution area and ~30 degree of active area, and the full 200 degree HFOV is only realized by moving them around and subconsciously compositing images, so most of panels can bee left unlit, in theory.
But the panel resolution requirements is the same, and our technologies are just not there to make a true desktop replacement VR goggle, yet.
Maybe I'm hard to please but I would say even the AVP isn't actually suitable for multi-hour text sessions.
I guess from the comments we can draw conclusion that its different to everyone.
I had Quest 3 for a few months to play games and I feel okay playing, but every time I tried to open IDE and terminal after 10 minutes my brain just say full stop. I tried different fonts, themes and zoom levels, but it just feel wrong.
I feel similar feeling of discomfort as if I try to work on something not in computer in low light in real world. Might be it have something to do with my bad eyesight.
I honestly did not tested AVP enough. Its just good enough for me not to immediately want to stop using it, but again I have no idea what would really happen after a week of use for 3 hours. I did it once for a few hours and it felt amazing, but its Apple and there lots of other reasons not to buy their locked down hardware.
> every time I tried to open IDE and terminal after 10 minutes my brain just say full stop.
I'm wondering if it is because the screen was "flat" in front of you and you had no possibility to change your perspective. It would be interesting if the IDE had been in 3D space and you would look at it as if it was on your desk, capturing head movements etc.
This is certainly interesting idea, but I guess main problem isnt just UX and representation on 2D surface, but just pure amount of text data that you suppose to look at and understand what exactly it does.
When you have fiction or game dialogue text there is good bunch skimming going on so you dont care about every single symbol and or digit. So eyes dont get stuck looking at specific parts of text.
So yeah its very much possible that using VR as a virtual monitor setup it's just wrong aproach and there have to be paradigm shift in how we interact with dev environment to use it efficiently in VR.
I work on a Quest 3 no problem. This is sharper.
For me personally the Quest 3 is absolutely unusable for any text work. Even small font in games looks shitty. This is so far off for what it ought to be for comfortable work that I'll wait for devices with at least double the resolution per axis, i.e. 4x the pixels of the Quest 3 screens to even bother trying again.
Edit: And I'm writing this on a 32" 2560x1440 display which looks just dandy to me, so it's not like I'm super sensitive or have above average eyesight (quite the opposite actually)
I have tried this in the past and it wasn’t nearly sharp enough but I guess I see people using 1080p screens at work and those make me want to rip my eyeballs out.
Honestly I'be tried Quest 3 and it was not enough for me to consider it anything more than just a toy.
How many hours a day you spend in it? How often do you use it?
Most days often for several hours.
How many flights are you people taking that it's cutting into your work time? When I fly I just read a book.
For me it's more that flights are extremely boring. I find watching any movies or TV shows on a plane to be a horrible experience. The noise of the plane can ruin even the best of movies.
Maybe better for a train; the benefit is that when you unfold your bike for the last mile, you just put your work into partial transparency and navigate using the external cameras.
Also only possible if you've got a power outlet (Surprisingly even today many long haul flights do not) as its only got just over an hour of battery life.
It has a 21.6 Wh battery. You can easily get a power bank 3+ times this capacity, thus can last 4x longer. If anything, I would rather have that weight in my pocket or backpack than on my head, all things considered.
Can't use power banks on many flights now
Anecdotal, but on the last few flights that I've taken. I was told that you can use them, but you can't charge them on the flight. This was inside the US, American Airlines, and United. I can't speak to the other airlines.
I believe the restriction is on charging devices out of sight (in luggage, seatback pockets etc).
Depends on the airline and jurisdiction.
Using it while flying will be complicated by the fact that all airlines have banned the use of power banks. If the onboard USB socket isn't very powerful then you'll only get an hours' use.
Source?
Last I checked I'm allowed 100Wh of power bank on a flight. And for flights where that's not enough I'm used to having a (~100W) socket.
I can confirm that all the flights I have been on this year we were told not to use power banks. You can have one with you (well you have to since you're not allowed to check large lithium ion batteries) but you aren't allowed to actively use it.
100 W sockets? All the flights I've been on that provided power have had a really low current USB A port that can barely keep my phone from discharging when the screen is on.
In constrained plane environments https://github.com/vk2diy/hackbook-m4-mini works well and has long battery life. I fix the screen to the seat using adapted helping hands and use a wireless keyboard/mouse for input. Super comfy as long as your eyes can deal with the reduced distance (look down the aisle occasionally).
Magnifying style shop glsssed might actually be perfect for this. I use them for electronics repair (they also only focus close which is sort of a benefit here). Downside for me is they fit in a way that is too high (they are designed for looking straight ahead) that would be great for this
> https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/merge_requests/8671
This is Compiz Fusion [1,] 20 years later.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR8x5Wb26ew
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lawkc3jH3ws
If only the Steam Frame had a decent pass through mode.
i miss my wobbly windows
The Frame's screens aren't good enough for general computing. This is purely an entertainment device.
As far as I've kept track, a good-enough-for-reading headset doesn't exist yet. So it's not like Frame bad, it's whole industry still bad.
The Vision Pro is close, close enough for at least some people. Which is also why it's over 3x the price.
> The Frame's screens aren't good enough for general computing.
We did "general computing" in 320x200 screens. I think the Frame's screen is a bit better than that.
The issue is that magnifying the screens to fill your vision makes reasonably sized text very hard to read. You have to make the entire screen/text in front of you fairly large to make it legible. There are many other headsets with identical resolution panels, you can find this info everywhere
I disagree and I've got one
Just increase size/scaling of everything I guess right?
You can do this really well on $200 AR headsets that fit on your face like sunglasses and uses the battery of the device it's plugged into to last many hours.
If this is the biggest point, then I don't see why Xreal isn't more popular.
XReal is only replacing the screen part and needs another device as a core, this headset works standalone.
As the form factor is already pretty bulky, keeping it as a single device helps a lot IMHO.
Maybe some of the non-xreal brands or some combinations of hardware provide usable experiences, but all my experiences with xreal have been abysmal.
I think even that's an understatement.
My tinfoil-hat take is that Lepton looks like it's just aimed at Facebook but will ultimately make Google's Android less... uniquely impenetrable. Certain hardware-dependent stuff will probably never fully work here (GPS for instance), but having a registry of what is and isn't compatible with a third-party Android derivative, on a specific reference device, will benefit every third-party Android derivative. And not that it won't have similar anticheat issues, but having a games ecosystem outside of Google Play will also cover some of the infrastructure that would require that dependency otherwise -- including payments.
And not that I don't see a net positive if gacha games never successfully make the jump... but as a Linux device there's also a lot of stuff where you just don't have to care about Play Integrity, because instead you can just run the PC version and/or a desktop browser.
(edit: shameless plug for my recent, longer writeup on this @ bhmt.dev/blog/frame)
Admittedly my VR glasses are older, but for me this is a really terrible experience. If a game lacks native VR support, it's far more comfortable to just use my widescreen monitor in the real world.
I'd agree even if the resolution is closer to a real monitor I'd really rather not have a headset strapped to my face to play the same games I could play on a tv or monitor.
For sure. I think this is more for someone who wants something portable though.
Agreed, I think that's the big selling point: a private screen you can take with you.
But the Steam Frame specifically is not well suited for this. Something more minimal like the Big Screen Beyond 2 would be better, and XR-type glasses (like those from Viture) which present as standard monitors would be better still.
Agreed, this sounds like an odd feature to list.
There's a lot of mods (espescially for Unreal) that can graft VR support onto it, I'd say that's a more viable use case than virtual theatre screen.
I used to do this back in the day with VorpX. Playing the original bioshock via that was an incredible experience, seeing all the environmental storytelling. Utterly terrifying too.
Same. I'd say it's ridiculous to even mention it as a feature, it's more like a compatibility fallback. A shitty monitor showing an even shittier monitor while you have a fat brick strapped to your face. Maybe this gen is better, but from what reviewers say the practical hardware changes are very minimal.
What's more interesting is that it's a linux desktop open for tinkering. Maybe lots of virtual desktops all around, could probably get Blender to run in it too.
You don't need 4k in the headset panels to simulate a 4k monitor. The virtual screen isn't glued to your head.
No, you need a much higher res screen to do so. A 4k screen a meter away will have ridiculously higher pixel density per degree of vision than a 2K screen directly in front of your eye that will only ever be able to do very partial coverage. The effective angular res of the virtual screen would probably be comparable to 1080p at best. In Norm's review it's said that the default render res for flat screen is 720p.
I don’t see that as the biggest point. I really don’t have much interest in playing normal games in VR.
I could see how a kid might want that on Quest when they don’t have their own TV. And it might be nice on a plane.
But $1000 is a lot for that. I know people say that watching video in the Vision Pro is really nice, I wasn’t that thrilled when I tried it, but it felt to me more like a “you can do this because you have the hardware“ not a “this is why you buy it” feature.
Honestly as a VR enthusiast this is the least interesting feature by far.
If I want to game with glasses I'll just use my $200 xreal airs. I do sometimes on holidays using Samsung DeX and a gamepad, and GeForce now. Works well, I played through half of Cyberpunk that way.
But, now you can play through the second half in VR https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXho2LdD1qo
A flood of VR mods for popular games have been coming out lately.
Sorry I thought you were talking about the half-life ports.
I played the original "Luke Ross" Cyberpunk port but it was pretty horrible due to his mediocre alternate eye rendering and the lack of controller support.
I saw the new mod (dariulone?) but I didn't yet install it because it comes with a huge list of dependencies of other mods to install and I haven't had time for all that. I'm kinda hoping he makes a quick installer that packages everything :)
Yes I've already played those ports on my quest 3 (streaming). That was fun!
But they were talking about playing on a virtual 2D screen which I have no interest in
Man GeForce now is surprisingly stable/smooth. I barely use it now (built a PC) but I got the $5 founders rate and have no intention of getting rid of it
I was really hoping to realise the "Spatial Computing" dream of the Vision Pro, but was largely priced-out of the experience, considering it basically necessitates a MacBook to complete it too.
I would wager a simple browser and terminal session is probably all I need, so was looking forward to this device. However, the screen resolution is likely to be too small, I had done some experiments with Virtual Desktop, but the Rift S was too low-res, everything had to be like 48pt.
Reviews showing the desktop being fully accessible, does give quite a bit of hope, however.
I have both a Rift S and a Quest 3. The Quest 3's displays and optics blow the Rift out of the water! I've used it for coding using Immersed, and would be happy to use equivalent or slightly better (as the Steam Frame should be) for this purpose.
I think its performance is quite underappreciated. It has a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip.
I have a tiny handheld with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip and among many other things it plays GTA V and RDR2 almost perfectly, using FEX nonetheless. And because it's arm, battery life is so much better than on my laptop that I use it as a tiny mini linux laptop now.
Let's ignore that fact that you're saying "this isn't just a VR device" and then immediately describe the basic functionality of a VR device.
You really think people have been waiting to drop $1k for a device that lets them play games designed for a monitor inside of a headset rendering a larger virtual monitor with all of the additional complexity that brings?
For those priced out of getting an AVP at more than 3x the price on locked down hardware? You don't seem to think that market exists, but I think it does. $3,500 and Apple, or whatev but Facebook are total non-starters for some people while Valve and Linux are.
> You can run some/many (depending on your library) of your regular Steam games on a 'flat screen' inside the VR environment
I can already run 100% of my Steam games on a flat screen in front of my real eyes
Not cinema size, and not with your poor eyes focused on "infinite". And not any of this on a plane, or a train, or a self driving car, or an RV.
Your eyes won't be focused on "infinite" in VR either. The focus distance is similar to the distance to the screen on your desk.
Yes, it's around 1-2 meters
People tend to forget that the human eye has 2 ways to adjust for distance: 1. Moving the eyes relative to each depending on parallax (works in VR) 2. Deforming the eyes' lens to match the focal length (is fixed)
I can't believe you forgot the toilet.
But sadly not (officially) in 3D! SuperDepth3D is such a cool concept, I don't need most of my games to be full VR immersive camera experiences, but a nice big virtual full no-limits 3D monitor would be sick.
I like that you specified that the car was self driving, but didn't specify the RV was.
In my head the RV was parked and the VR provides a virtual office in the small space :)
I actually did this. Six month lap around Australia in a caravan with a Quest 3. It was ok; better than squinting at a laptop screen, but not as good as a decent physical monitor. If I did it again I'd convert a bus to have a proper desk/monitor.
My eyes already show as much as I can see.
Yes, this ability at this price point is very attractive indeed. I currently do this with Vision Pro, but it involves a mac and a capture card in addition to the steam deck.
Not trying to proselytize an opinion here, but every time I think about VR Goggles + a virtual flat screen, I think about how entire industries exist to make us comfortable while we watch our real flat screens. A VR option would allow me to just lay comatose-like in my bed, goggles affixed to my face, as I watch whatever. It terrifies me, partly because of how good I bet it could feel.
I have an "image sorter" web application that works great on desktop, tablets, phones and... my meta quest 3. I can bum around the spare room on the couch and have three big windows hanging in the air. If your "click" targets conform with WCAG AAA standards such an app is easy to use with controllers.
It's particularly fun to watch 3d movies with the headset but with several decent TVs in the house I'd watch movies most of the time with one of them.
> with several decent TVs in the house I'd watch movies most of the time with one of them
Once these headsets have comparable image quality, I could see them being very engaging for TV series, sports, and movies. I often wear headphones at night when I'm watching content to avoid waking my family. Being able to do that in any room, with an even larger "screen" would be really useful in some cases.
Not bed, a stasis biochamber. Taking care of all your needs during a long fleet fight in EvE online.
Finally no need to let people leave for a 5 min bio every 1.5h.
Though with the current direction things are evolving towards, the biochamber might get replaced with the torment nexus.
I don’t know. I can’t even take a nap while having my glasses on, so the thought of lying down with a much weightier VR headset pressing down on my face doesn’t sound super comfortable.
I know lots … and lots … of people that sleep in VR. I don’t know how they do it either, but there we are!
This product doesn’t look half bad for sleeping in VR for people that are used to doing so with other headsets. Definitely easier than some offerings.
> I know lots … and lots … of people that sleep in VR.
Funny how demographics work. I don't know a lot of people who use VR. In fact I don't know a single person who is remotely interested in ehat looks to me and my friends like a very niche technology.
Honestly, with apps like Immersed, custom two-hand keyboards, and trackball mice, it is already feasible to lie comatose in bed with a VR headset strapped to your face and get through an entire day of software development.
Just like nature intended.
They are simply uncomfortable for that. That is a niche for a niche use case.
That sounds like a worse experience to me.
When sitting, the optimally comfortable angle to look, and the optimal place to hold a controller are very far from each other. The Deck is basically only fun for long sessions if you can play it laying down. VR is more flexible in this regard.
I have used my deck (multi hour sessions) for a long time from the couch, bed, and gaming chair and i found them all very comfortable. As long as your chair has arm rests then it shouldnt be too bad. The only place i havent used a deck much is at a table or from a bench with no arm rests,and i could see how either might be uncomfortable.
How long is that comfortable? For sure not couple of hours in 1 go
Valve thought of that. Its got a 1 hour battery life and you have to wait 3-5 hours for it to charge back up!
It is 21.6 Wh capacity and charges at up to 45W, so it should take less than half an hour to fully charge from zero. Not sure where you got the 3-5 hours from?
Valves own testing + reviewers. Nobody anywhere has got anything close to the speed you're suggesting.
On the GamersNexus review Valve says charging should take 90 minutes. But it took GamersNexus and other reviewers 3 hours. So it probably broke in a software update and a fix is likely coming. But if this is important to you, make sure to wait for the update to land before making a decision...
For the Quest 3 for example, you can get a Bobovr halo strap that has replaceable magnetically connected battery packs. If you have at least two, you can just swap them when one runs out and by the time the second one is empty, the first one is charged.
IIRC Valve is going to release something similar in a couple months & I am sure there will be other accessory developers chiming in as well. :)
Gamers Nexus lists a ~120-min battery life in their video review of the Steam Frame.
Reviews say around 2-4 hours when streaming from PC, 1 hour is if you're gaming directly on the device with the graphics turned all the way up.
> For sure not couple of hours in 1 go
Worry not! That's how long the battery lasts!
Just used my Vision Pro nonstop on a 9hr flight. It’s a game changer for travel; you disappear into a private movie theater and come out at your destination.
Despite that experience that I’ve heard is lovely, it does compete with the $300 used iPad Air I bought years ago.
The screen on a used iPad Air really doesn’t look half bad, it is far smaller and lighter in a bag, and it can play movies for that entire flight without needing an external battery.
Although, speaking of used devices, the Vision Pro is looking delightfully depreciated on eBay.
VR enthusiasts will be in VR 7+ hours on a weekend. I regularly clock 4+.
Without a tether to the PC (I have battery in my pocket) it’s pretty okay!
> How long is that comfortable?
It depends on the person. I can wear my Index on my head for like all day. I'm not sure what my longest Elite: Dangerous session was, but it was quite long. Other people find the same headset to be either too heavy or improperly balanced for wearing more than an hour or so at a time.
As far as motion sickness goes, it has been my experience that you can train yourself out of it. Recommendations:
1) If it doesn't do bad things to you, consume some Dramamine beforehand.
2) Don't play games that launch you through the air or otherwise induce a lot of mismatch between your virtual motion and your physical motion. Seated piloting (car or otherwise) games are one big exception to this recommendation, as most folks have a lot of brain training with "I'm sitting in a vehicle that's moving me around.", so one's brain doesn't freak out so much when presented with those visuals.
3) When you start getting nauseous, stop immediately. If you're still game, come back to play after the nausea is gone, but not before.
Newbies will attempt to power through the nausea, but it's not something you can power through... you'll just make it way worse, which sets back the whole "Convince your stupid brain that the minor mismatches between the visuals and the inner-ear sensations are not the result of poisoning, so it doesn't need to make you puke your toenails off" training that you're doing by easing into this and -if possible- using OTC anti-nausea drugs.
[0] For me, Dramamine is very helpful to prevent motion sickness.
Do you need to keep taking Dramamine, or do you adapt to it eventually?
Everyone I'm aware of adapts to it eventually unless they keep trying to power through the nausea. It's the basis for my
statement. Having said that, I haven't met everyone... so it's possible that there are people who will never adapt.Except far less comfortable and motion sick inducing for a non-trivial portion of the population. No thanks.
HL Alyx was awesome though, nothing else on VR has been worth it for me.
That's already true for most PC VR headsets.
Edit: I missed the point here, see reply.
Standalone? No. Most PC VR headsets require a PC. The Steam Frame will let you play 2D games (and some VR games), with no phone or PC attached.
Thank you for the correction.
Also VR is just not somewhere you want to be.. Its worth it in short bursts for playing Alyx or golf with a friend, but it's not comfortable, you wanna get that thing off asap.. Playing a conventional 40+ hour game in it would be awful.
I even downloaded some 3d movies to try watching in VR, pacific rim and avatar movies (there's not that many 3d movies) but I didnt get far into them, the 3d was more of a distraction than anything. Flat screen is just superior imo.
Hopefully Valve make a sequel to Alyx to help sell the new headset.