10 things we learned about Valve’s Steam Frame from that leaked Linus Tech Tips video

I love a good leak. Is it a genuine leak or is it marketing? Nearly impossible to tell these days. Regardless, we learn something every time a leak happens. Valve is set to launch its new VR headset, the Steam Frame, sometime in Summer 2026. That’s all we know. But thanks to Linus Tech Tips (LTT) we now know the launch is imminent. The tech YouTuber’s unboxing account, Short Circuit, accidentally pubished an unboxing video of the Steam Frame. It was quickly removed, but “unfortunately” for Valve and LTT, the Internet Archive operates pretty quickly.

So with this VR headset so eagerly anticipated, what did we learn from this leak?

The bundled 6GHz dongle is optional, not mandatory

You do not need Valve’s dongle to use Steam Frame wirelessly. The headset ships with a dedicated 6GHz streaming adapter that plugs into your PC and talks directly to the headset, and Valve says that dedicated connection gives the best experience because nothing else is competing for the signal. If your home network already runs a strong 6GHz band, Linus confirmed you can skip the dongle and stream over that instead. Valve has also mentioned a third mode that blends the dongle with your home Wi-Fi for better reliability, though that was not something that got tested in this unboxing.

Foveated streaming is the entire point, and it holds up

The dongle matters because of what it is streaming, foveated video that uses the headset’s built-in eye tracking to render whatever you are looking at in full quality and quietly drop the resolution everywhere else. The feature was toggled on and off during the demo video and Linus could not tell the difference, because his eyes simply cannot move fast enough to catch the drop in quality at the edges. That is the whole promise of wireless PC VR finally being delivered rather than just claimed.

Wireless in play, still wired for charging

Steam Frame does away with the tether during play, but not with cables entirely – somewhat obviously. It charges over USB-C to USB-C like any other modern gadget, and Valve includes a power supply and a cleaning cloth in the box. It is a small detail, but a fair one to flag given how much of the marketing leans on the word wireless. I realise this point might seem laboured, but you can never be too safe.

The IPD slider finally gets a lock

Inter Pupillary Distance (IPD) is the distance between the centers of your pupils measured in millimeter. Anyone who owned an Index, Valve’s first VR headset, will recognise this problem and why a fix was important. The Index IPD slider tended to loosen over time until a firm head shake could pop the in-headset menu up by accident. Steam Frame’s IPD adjuster, which sits along the top of the headset, comes with its own lock this time, along with several other physical locks Linus found while taking the unit apart.

It is a small fix, but it directly answers one of the more common gripes about the outgoing hardware.

What’s packed into the compute module

Under the hood is a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip built on a 4-nanometre process, paired with 16GB of LPDDR5X memory, Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4. Storage runs from 256GB up to 1TB, and there is a microSD slot for anyone who wants more, tucked into the face gasket. That same area also houses the eye tracking sensor and a presence sensor, and there is an expansion port on the underside of the headset which remains somewhat mysterious. It’s likely for unnannounced accessories.

The screen is sharp, but not without quirks

Each eye gets a 2160×2160 LCD panel, with a refresh rate anywhere from 72Hz up to an experimental 144Hz, the same range as the original Index. Linus called it sharp without being the sharpest panel he has used, and noted visible colour fringing toward the edges of the lenses as you move your head, orange one way and blue the other. It is a trade-off familiar from other pancake lens headsets rather than a Steam Frame specific flaw, and it did not stop him finishing a full session of Half-Life: Alyx without complaint.

The controllers run on one AA each and double as a proper gamepad

Each controller takes a single AA battery, which Valve claims lasts around 40 hours of play. It is a genuinely nice compromise, instant power from a fresh battery if you need it right now, or a rechargeable AA if you would rather not keep buying new ones. I highly recommend getting something like the Linogy charger which will keep you flush with powered AA and AAA batteries forever.

Linus was less impressed with the feel of the ABXY buttons than he had hoped, though he called them fine rather than bad. The bigger point is that these controllers are built to work as a real controller for flat, non-VR games too, with touch sensitive thumbstick tops, not just as motion wands.

There are three distinct ways to play

Steam Frame supports streamed PC VR over that dongle, fully standalone play using the onboard hardware, and a flat desktop mode for 2D games and video projected in front of you. Standalone play is the interesting one, since SteamOS on Steam Frame adds FEX, a translation layer that runs x86 code on the headset’s ARM chip, alongside the existing Proton layer that already handles Windows games on Linux. Linus described the result as “an ARM PC that’s strapped to your face”, which sums up why Valve’s standalone library ambitions here are so much bigger than a typical Android based headset.

Fit is not guaranteed to be one size fits all

Prescription lens support is something Valve is planning but has not confirmed for launch. The small nose adapter that ships as part of the ergonomic accessories kit, itself only confirmed as part of the review unit’s box rather than the standard retail package, still let light leak in around a couple of testers’ noses during fitting, including one with a smaller face and Linus himself with a larger one.

Comfort was not described as perfect by any stretch, but Linus reckoned it already beat the comfort of pricier rivals on the market. There was also no sign of the kind of small head spacer the original Index shipped with, so anyone with a smaller head should treat that as an open question until Valve says otherwise.

Half-Life: Alyx is going standalone, but plenty is still missing

Half-Life: Alyx already works over PC streaming, and Valve is separately building a native version that runs directly on the headset with no PC required at all. So if you’re confident enough to whip this out on a flight, you’re good to go.

Steam Machine streaming, on the other hand, is not supported yet, so anyone hoping to pair Steam Frame with Valve’s other new box will need a Windows PC in the meantime. Range was not an issue in Linus’s testing, he walked well beyond any cable’s realistic length with no drop in quality, and later tested an even longer distance during a multiplayer demo at Valve’s own offices.

None of this answers the two questions everyone still wants settled, price and a release date, and both remain unconfirmed even after this leak went out. There is no Euro pricing anywhere yet either, so Irish buyers are in exactly the same waiting room as everyone else. Given how much of the hardware is already locked down, an official reveal from Valve itself should not be far behind.