By Valve has posted a fresh Steam Frame update, and it covers the three things a lot of people have been asking about: when reservation holders will actually get to buy the headset, the release of the CAD files, and a rundown of every software improvement shipped since launch last month. Here’s what’s new and what we make of it.
Reservation timing: December or 2027
Valve opened Steam Frame sign-ups on September 14th, did a one-time shuffle of that list on September 17th, and started fulfilling orders in that shuffled order on September 18th.
If you have a reservation, you can now see your expected order window on the Steam Frame product page while logged in to your Steam account. It will tell you whether your purchase email is coming by December or in 2027. Anyone in the 2027 group will get more detailed timing by January. Once that email lands, you have 72 hours to complete the purchase, otherwise your spot passes to the next person in line.
What it means for the waitlist
The waitlist is still open, and new sign-ups go to the back in the order they join. Valve will let people know as spots open up, but queues are split by region, so some regions will start pulling from the waitlist sooner than others. Valve also confirmed that nobody on the waitlist will jump ahead of someone holding a reservation; it only dips into a region’s waitlist once that region’s reservation queue is finished. That’s a welcome clarification, because waitlisted buyers getting ahead of reservation holders was a real complaint during past hardware launches.
Honestly, we think Valve needs a better pre-order system. It’s wild that some people who got a reservation and got excited might not see their headset until next year, especially for a device this expensive. One of us was waitlisted and couldn’t wait, so ended up buying a Steam Frame from someone else. We’re lucky to have our Steam Frames, Steam Machines and Steam Controllers secured now, but we completely understand how frustrating the wait is for everyone still in the queue.
CAD files are now available
Valve has also released the Steam Frame CAD files and electrical interface information. They’re free for non-commercial use, and anyone wanting to use them commercially is asked to contact Valve first. It’ll be interesting to see what accessories the community comes up with.
Power and battery life
The headline software change is better power efficiency, with battery life gains of up to 12% during both streaming and local gameplay. Valve notes results vary with frame rate and content, but the latest update only just hit stable and we’re already noticing a slight improvement in battery life in our own testing. There’s also a new Presence Sensor Sensitivity setting, with a high sensitivity option that keeps the displays on in more situations, such as when you’re using glasses spacers.
Streaming fixes
Streaming gets a lot of attention, which shows Valve has been listening to the complaints. Colour clarity during VR streaming is better, reliability has been improved (including fixes for the “Error 17” problem many people hit), and Steam Frame wireless adapter connectivity issues affecting some countries have been fixed. Audio is more reliable while streaming, other network interfaces should no longer disrupt the wireless dongle connection, spectator view now uses smoother motion by default, and the keyboard now appears properly while streaming.
General, audio and accessibility improvements
On the general side, Valve fixed controller bindings failing to load in certain games, improved focus behaviour around grab and resize handles, improved gamepad navigation in the dashboard, and fixed flickering dashboard panels. Return to Gaming Mode now works when starting up directly in Desktop Mode, there’s an option to turn off spectator view smoothing, and the dashboard should no longer recenter unnecessarily. The embedded browser has been updated too, alongside general performance and stability work. Audio downmix and binaural rendering now have matching volume across formats.
For accessibility, you can now limit eye tracking to a single eye and set your dominant eye in VR Settings, which controls the eye used for spectator view and screenshots. We really like this addition.
Steam Client changes
The Steam Client also picks up some Steam Frame improvements: better colour accuracy when streaming non-VR games from a Windows PC, a battery percentage option in the dashboard bar, gamepad navigation in the streaming menu, spectating status and a stop button in that menu, a VR Quick Access Menu that opens on click instead of hover, and a fix so the wireless adapter’s manual configuration shows the correct Wi-Fi channels in every region.
Final thoughts
The reservation news is a bit of a gut punch for anyone pushed into 2027, but the software side is genuinely encouraging. As we said in our review, we were hopeful the Steam Frame would keep getting better, and Valve continuing to ship update after update is exactly what we wanted to see. Let us know in the comments whether you’ve noticed a difference with your Steam Frame since the latest update.