Steam Body Evaluate: Overpriced and Uncomfortable

I needed to like this factor. I’ve been ready years for Valve to make good on the Index. As an alternative I received a headset that prices greater than a console, does lower than a three-year-old competitor, and bodily punished me for carrying it. That is simply the costliest factor I’ve ever placed on my face, and it’s additionally simply the worst.

Let’s begin with the quantity everybody’s dancing round: $1,059 USD ($1,529 CAD) for the 256GB mannequin, $1,299 USD ($1,859 CAD) for 1TB. That’s not fanatic pricing, that’s a tax on individuals who trusted Valve. The Steam Body ought to have been $700 USD ($1,010 CAD) max, and even that might’ve been a stretch for what’s within the field. There is no such thing as a configuration of this {hardware} that justifies 4 figures. Valve has someway made the Index’s $999 USD ($1,440 CAD) equipment appear like a cut price 5 years later.

The “$1,059 USD ($1,529 CAD)” headline is fiction. When you arguably don’t want the passthrough, for the reason that function is truthfully so completely ineffective because it stands, you will want the equipment equipment. I imply, neither of the 2 fashions include a freaking head strap. Like, what? I’m supposed to only let all of that weight sit on my face, and hope to Gaben that it doesn’t end in migraines?

Sadly, even with the top strap (the factor that goes on prime of your head), you’ll nonetheless discover that the headset is remarkably tight, whereas additionally oddly unfastened all on the identical time. Gentle bleed, even with the sunshine blocker, could be very noticeable.

I don’t know who this headset was sculpted for, nevertheless it wasn’t a human head. Or possibly I’m simply not human, who is aware of. Even with the top strap prolonged to its most size, the clamping pressure was so extreme that inside a session I had a full-blown stress headache radiating from my temples and the highest of my (human?) cranium. This isn’t one thing one can simply “get used to”.

After which there’s the fabric. After roughly twenty minutes of damage, I began creating a rash on the pores and skin the place the facial sponge factor contacts my face. Twenty minutes. Not a marathon session, not a sweaty summer time exercise. Twenty minutes of damage. No matter foam and coating Valve used here’s a real pores and skin irritant, and the truth that a $1,059 USD ($1,529 CAD) machine ships with a face factor that reacts to pores and skin is inexcusable.

For context: my $500 USD ($720 CAD) Quest 2 (a headset from 2020, with worse specs in each class) remains to be extra snug and extra usable than this. It clamps much less, it breathes higher, and it doesn’t go away welts. Plus, the Quest 2 let me select a special kind of face factor as effectively, one which was made out of a plastic of some variety. I do know many individuals disliked that, however for me personally? It’s nice. It was considerably higher than every part else, and boy do I miss it.

Valve features a “glasses spacer,” and I wish to be honest and acknowledge it exists, then instantly level out that it doesn’t clear up the issue. Even with the spacer in, my glasses press into my face, the frames get pinched in opposition to my forehead, and it truthfully simply freaking hurts. The attention reduction is just too shallow for anybody who wears real-world glasses. When you have frames, you’re anticipated to both purchase prescription inserts (one other ~$68 USD (~$98 CAD) and up) or simply undergo. “Purchase extra stuff” is that this headset’s reply to every part. Oh, however wait! These prescription inserts? Yeah, not out there but. I actually can’t purchase them even when I needed to.

The optics gave me persistent, gnawing eye pressure that lingered effectively after I took the headset off. Possibly it’s the lens spacing, possibly it’s the IPD candy spot, possibly it’s my face not matching Valve’s one-size-fits-nobody mildew however the outcome is similar. I completed each session with aching eyes and a headache, which is a superb feeling for the privilege of spending over a thousand {dollars}.

Right here’s my favorite half. The Steam Body’s passthrough is monochrome black-and-white, low-res, grainy. In 2026. A $600 USD ($865 CAD) Quest 3 has had full-colour passthrough for years.

Need color? Valve’s reply is a $150 USD ($215 CAD) add-on digicam module that snaps onto the growth port. So the precise worth of “seeing your room in color” on a $1,059 USD ($1,529 CAD) headset is $1,209 USD ($1,744 CAD) minimal. The product’s personal advertising materials ought to learn: HD bought individually. That’s not modularity, that’s nickel-and-diming and it’s on prime of the $59 USD ($85 CAD) strap equipment and the $49 USD ($70 CAD) alternative gasket you’ll want the second the included one finishes supplying you with a rash.

The issues began earlier than I even received right into a recreation. Throughout preliminary setup, I attempted to hook up with Wi-Fi and the on-screen keyboard appeared simply nice, however urgent any key on it instantly unselected the password discipline. I’d faucet the sphere, begin typing, and the cursor would simply vanish from the field. No error, no suggestions, only a keyboard that refused to do the one factor a keyboard exists to do. I needed to totally restart the Steam Body earlier than it could lastly let me kind in my Wi-Fi password. Not precisely the premium unboxing expertise you’d count on from a thousand-dollar-plus headset.

And that jankiness doesn’t cease at setup.

• Body stutters on native video games, not simply streamed ones. Beat Saber, a recreation that runs flawlessly on a Quest 2, hitched and stuttered on the Steam Body prefer it was struggling to maintain up.
• Audio reduce out fully on first boot, requiring one more full restart earlier than sound got here again. That’s two compelled reboots earlier than I even received into an actual session.
• The controllers simply don’t really feel like they’re meant to be held. It’s laborious to articulate precisely, however they by no means sit proper in your hand. The grip, the angle, the button placement, none of it feels aligned with the place your fingers naturally fall. The Quest 2’s Contact controllers really feel like they had been formed round a human hand. The wands really feel like Valve designed them round a spec sheet and hoped for the very best.
• No hand monitoring in any respect, so that you’re caught with these uncomfortable wands for every part, together with fundamental menu navigation.
• Battery life of 1 to 2 hours, tethered to a charger nearly as typically because the Index was tethered to a PC.

None of this can be a dealbreaker by itself for an fanatic machine. All of it collectively, at this worth, completely is.

The Steam Body is one more Valve {hardware} failure: a product that launched years late, priced as a luxurious, shipped as a beta, and managed to be worse on the fundamentals (consolation, match, supplies, passthrough) than headsets costing a 3rd of the worth. The tech demos are neat. The worth proposition is insulting. My face remains to be recovering.

Don’t purchase it. Not at $1,059 USD ($1,529 CAD). Not at $1,299 USD ($1,859 CAD). Actually, not on the $700 USD ($1,010 CAD) it ought to have been, as a result of no worth fixes a headset that hurts to put on.

Right here’s my cat attempting to wreck (some would possibly say improve) the photographs I used to be attempting to take of this headset.

Like with all issues tech, particularly new tech just like the Steam Body, our opinions could change because the product improves post-launch.