Based on the recent development work that appears to be happening in SteamVR for Linux, which hasn’t gotten that much love since a couple months after Alyx released, my money is on this being a “standalone” VR headset. That said, I’ll be happy with almost anything at this point, I really enjoy pretty much all the hardware Valve has made over the years, and trying out their ideas for new ways to interact with games is always fun.
I would be so happy for a stand-alone gaming VR headset that isn’t run by Facebook.
Doesn’t make much sense to me. It will be very limited in capability and it will be too heavy to wear on your face.
One would think a video game company would make a headset that’s great for gaming, and plugs into your existing gaming rig, rather than buying a whole new gaming rig that you have to wear on your face.
I don’t get what the big deal is, they dropped the Facebook account requirement a while ago and it’s easily the best headset on the market for wireless VR. You don’t even have to use their store, you can do everything in PCVR. I know everyone here hates big tech, but you’re not going to find an open source VR headset.
It’s less about it not being open source and more about it being Facebook. One of the worst companies. I refuse to strap my face into spyware.
This is the same company that made a study on how it negatively impacted people’s lives and then purposely moved against it for profit. I simply don’t trust them to make anything with my best interests in mind.
The Steam controller is a miracle. Yes, it’s a first Gen product that needs iteration but a controller with track pads, gyro, paddle buttons, and wireless for $50 is still the best value controller ever made imo.
Throw in steam input, which if you haven’t tried it lately is fucking amazing at this point, and I honestly can’t understand why companies aren’t clamoring to integrate it.
Full controls customizability with 1000’s of options and, something very few controllers seem to have for some reason, digital+analog triggers.
Plus it helped normalize paddles.
Steam controller is amazing and I’d love a gen 2 that matches my steam deck layout.
I have a Steam controller and a Deck, I never clicked with the SC. Its touchpads were just a bit inconsistent, so I would end up rubbing them uncomfortably hard to make sure they register. The regular controller inputs are tiny and horribly offset from any comfortable position.
The deck absolutely nailed the controls. (Well, once you replace the sticks with Hall sensors. The stock rheostats are toast after a year.)
The steam controller is fucking fantastic. No other controller lets you play mouse based games the same way. With its trackpads and gyro aiming you can be way more accurate than a normal controller. If you’re using it expecting it to be just a variety of a traditional console controller, you’re in for a bad time.
The steam controller is more personal, you can remap any button to be anything, and any modifier to enable on any button press. (Like turn on gyro aim when you hold R2) there’s a ton of aiming options, you can use the trackpads to create circular menus for weapon or skill selections… the possibilities are endless.
But instead people just bought it, and thought ‘this not as comfy as xbox, why only one joystick, why no dpad’ and put it down again.
People had the chance for better but it meant learning something new.
It has a pretty significant learning curve and because you’re not at all familiar with the layout it’s hard to decide on a layout that works for you. That ‘more personal’ aspect is part of the problem, at least at first. It’s going to feel awkward no matter what, but without a consensus on how to use it, it gives me analysis paralysis trying to decide how to set it up.
If it’s your sort of thing it’s such a good controller, and if not there’s community layouts for most games.
I do get a little satisfaction out of playing a more complex game like Cities Skylines on the sofa and figuring out a controller friendly build for it.
I use the steam controller. Nothing wrong with it in my mind (except maybe the fact that it uses batteries and is slightly too large).
except maybe the fact that it uses batteries
I disagree. Because of swappable batteries my controller is still relevant 7 years and half worn down sticks later.
If I were to complain, it’s about unpleasant hollow sound on trackpads and L1/R1 button clicks.
The AA batteries last really, really long and you can get rechargeable ones. You swap them in a few seconds and can continue playing.
The ones that were included with the controller lasted me for several months before I had to swap them.
My money is on Steam Controller 2, but what do I know.
Yeah, wouldn’t need that unless it was something more, I suppose. Either a super fancy controller or something else.
The steam controller 1 already has wifi, its not the only controller that does this, the nvidia shield controller also does. The standard these and a very few other controllers use is called wifi direct, and basically uses an adhoc network to connect. This is seamless for the user.
I hope that’s the one. I had to connect the Steam Controller to my Deck though the Dock to play something on big screen and my fingers were fumbling for the difference in button layout and number. A Steam Controller 2 with the same layout as the Deck would be an instant wishlist topper
This is the best summary I could come up with:
South Korea’s National Radio Research Agency has certified a “low power wireless device” from Valve with the designation “RC-V1V-1030,” as spotted by @dxpl at Arca.live (via Brad Lynch).
The South Korean certification tells us basically nothing about the device, save that it uses 5GHz Wi-Fi, which most computers already have at this point.
But telecommunications regulatory agencies typically don’t require certification for internal prototypes — only if you’re going to import at least a small quantity of devices in a country, and maybe put them on sale.
There are other hints in Valve’s own code, however — Phoronix’s Michael Larabel spotted that Valve has added new changes around the Steam Deck’s Van Gogh APU, including the mysterious product name “Galileo” and product family “Sephiroth.” (Aerith, closely connected to Sephiroth in Final Fantasy VII, is another name for the Deck’s APU.)
While Larabel initially suggests it might just be a Steam Deck refresh reference board, Valve’s Greg Coomer told me in 2021 that the Steam Deck’s existing APU might make sense in a standalone VR headset.
A standalone VR headset codenamed Deckard was at least being prototyped inside Valve, sources confirmed to YouTuber Brad Lynch and Ars Technica back in 2021, and some patent images made the rounds last June.
The original article contains 429 words, the summary contains 209 words. Saved 51%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I would love a slightly narrower and overall smaller steam deck. It’s great at home but I think twice about bringing it when flying already with a laptop and iPad.
Personally, I left my laptop behind, and just brought my Steam Deck and eInk tablet, along with a Bluetooth keyboard. I was able to get most of my light work done on the Steam Deck, and remoted into my home PC for a couple things I needed Windows for, or when transferring a large file over hotel WiFi didn’t make much sense when I could just work on it remotely and leave it on my PC and NAS back home.
Though admittedly my trip was a personal trip. If you were on a work trip and needed to present something or do some serious photo or video editing, I can understand needing the laptop.
every non work trip I’ve considered doing the same. Then the very last minute I still end up taking my laptop “in case of work emergencies”. I should spend some time in desktop mode and really get it all set up to build confidence
This is exciting, regardless of what it could be!
