Being one of the lucky few to get my Steam Frame a few weeks ago, I have been using it quite a bit since then. I have been buying some third-party accessories to mitigate some of its weaknesses.

First the obvious one: it is surprisingly light and small, but overall not comfortable enough due to my glasses. To solve that I went ahead and bought prescription lenses from VR Optician (119€ including fast shipping and additional prescription fee).

Then I figured I had better protect it against sunlight because I do not have one of those fancy head mounts nor do I want to pack it in its box between each use. Thus I got an AMVR lens cover that fits quite well (13€).

And finally the battery life situation is… Well it’s bad. I got decent VR legs and can play for hours, but the battery only lasts at most 1h30 when running PCVR at 120Hz. So I got myself a UGREEN Nexode 145W 25000mAh Power Bank (56€), 2 short angled USB-C cables (24€), round magnetic USB-C adapters (16€) and a small fanny pack (10€).

I will also say there has been some trial and error regarding the magnetic adapter. The idea is to protect the headset port in case the cable snags on anything. I wanted to plug it directly in the headset port, but it tends to disconnect when I turn my head. The tradeoff I landed on is : one very short cable plugged in, magnetically coupled with a longer one that goes to the battery. The 240W-rated USB-C cables are also overkill but hey, not that much of a price difference (they are quite thick though and contributed some in my disconnect issue).

So there you have it, 238€ on top of the initial Steam Frame + ergonomic accessories kit purchase (which is a must-have if you ask me), not counting said trial and error.

  • Natanael@infosec.pub
    0·
    9 hours ago

    There’s a reason they put the battery in the band and made it replaceable. I think they wanted more but decided to cut costs. They said the upcoming one with those Index-like speakers would include bigger batteries (I’m definitely getting that). So eventually the Frame will effectively be able to do all the things, but you’re gonna have to buy extras for it.

    Even in the future, the openness of it means that once it’s getting too weak for standalone play you’ll be able to stream from other portable decides which are strong enough, like future gaming phones (or something like the Xreal Aura puck).

    IMHO the biggest long term limit is the resolution, but given how repairable it is, as long as there’s enough bandwidth available on those ports I think that can be upgraded too.

    • TheSambassador@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      6 hours ago

      Isn’t the battery literally glued in? I’m sure it’s more replaceable than a lot of electronics these days but it’s not like a hot swappable battery (that would have been awesome)

      • Natanael@infosec.pub
        0·
        5 hours ago

        Yeah but it’s glued in an easily accessible and openable part that you can replace. You could make a third party strap with hotswapping because the entire strap can be replaced.