Steam Frame news worth a look if you spend much time in VR: Cuff is a free, open-source wrist panel that sits on the back of your hand as a SteamVR overlay. Glance at your wrist and you get the time, battery statuses, six quick actions and a row of plugin tabs the project calls charms. I haven’t installed it myself yet, so this is based on the project’s GitHub page and the release notes, not hands-on testing.
It showed up on r/SteamFrame in a post by u/Cruxius, who linked the Brobert-in-aus/cuff repository on GitHub. Thanks to them for sharing it, and to the r/SteamFrame crowd for picking it up. The author describes the project as fully vibe coded, and the code is MIT licensed.
What Cuff shows on your Steam Frame wrist
According to the README, the top of the panel is fixed. You always get the clock plus battery readouts for the headset, the controllers and any Bluetooth headphones that report a level, including whether an external battery pack is still keeping the headset topped up. Below that sit six quick actions you can rearrange in Settings, with defaults covering dictation, mic mute, passthrough, recenter, record and a screenshot on a three-second countdown.
Charms add the tabs underneath. The bundled set includes:
- Now Playing for media controls from whatever is playing, switching to a Spotify-focused view when the headset is your Spotify speaker.
- Audio for volume, mute and which output the sound goes to.
- Timer with a countdown, stopwatch and an optional break reminder.
- Performance for how a game is running, including framerate and both Steam Link links when you stream from a PC (that side needs Cuff for PC).
- Record to save a short clip of the last few seconds, start a longer recording and watch clips in the headset.
- Settings for wrist side, size, position, which charms run and how alerts grab your attention.
Alerts cover a timer finishing, a break reminder, the headset stopping charge because a pack went flat, or a low battery. The project says each one can show a message above the panel, buzz the wrist and play a chime, with a glow beyond the controller if the panel is out of view. You poke the panel with the small sphere in front of your other controller.
How to install Cuff on Steam Frame
There are two routes. The README’s recommended path is Cuff for PC, a Windows app that installs and updates the headset side for you. You download CuffForPC-Setup-<version>.exe from the latest GitHub release, run it, turn SSH on once in Desktop Mode on the Frame, then use Headset setup with the headset’s IP and password. The password is only used to place a key; it isn’t stored. After that the PC app can update Cuff over the network, pull clips and screenshots, change settings with a mouse, and type onto the headset from the PC keyboard. The first run also downloads what dictation needs on the PC, about 2.5 GB.
If you prefer not to use a Windows PC, you can install on the headset alone in Desktop Mode with:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Brobert-in-aus/cuff/main/get-cuff.sh | sh
That puts Cuff under ~/.local/share/cuff, starts it with SteamVR, and can download an on-headset speech model of about 650 MB for dictation without a PC. Optional pieces cover the recorder, a panel helper and a player for watching recordings. Run the same command again to update, or pass --status / --uninstall as needed.
Steam Frame news: Cuff v1.3.0 and a few caveats
The latest tagged release as I write this is v1.3.0, published on 5 November 2026. The notes say Type live on Cuff for PC now forwards keyboard shortcuts to the headset, and the overlay path was changed so SteamVR’s memory no longer grows while you watch the panel. Updating means bumping both the PC app and the headset install when you use that path.
A few practical notes from the project itself. Cuff for PC is Windows-only right now. Charms are Python running inside Cuff, so only install ones you trust, and ones that ask for stronger permissions stay off until you approve them. Nothing is meant to leave your network, and dictation runs on your PC or headset. This is a community project, not something from Valve, so treat it like any other third-party SteamVR overlay.
If you’re already chasing Frame software updates, my notes on the SteamOS 0.5.7 beta for Steam Frame and on SteamVR Beta 2.19.1’s sharper Frame streaming are useful companions. For capturing gameplay on the headset itself, the SFRecorder guide is still the dedicated walkthrough on that side.
I’ll be interested to see how Cuff settles in once more people try the wrist UI day to day. If you give it a go, the GitHub issues page and the Reddit thread are the places the author is collecting feedback.
