Steam Frame launches without screen narration or color filters
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In short
Steam Frame does not include the screen narration found on Steam Deck and Steam Machine, according to a hands-on accessibility review. Its color-filter menu also offers no choice other than the default.
Access-Ability tested Valve’s new VR headset for a little over two weeks. Steam Frame runs SteamOS and works as a standalone device, streams games wirelessly from a PC, or displays conventional games on a large virtual screen. The review nevertheless found two vision features from other SteamOS devices missing at launch: text-to-speech menu narration and working color filters.
The built-in passthrough view of the surrounding room is black and white with a blue tint. The reviewer could not read a phone screen through its cameras. An external color camera from Arcturus Vision made the image clearer and the phone readable, but costs £129 and may require installation help for people with limited fine-motor control.
Low-vision players can adjust brightness, disable image sharpening, and enable a setting intended to keep the edges of the field of view in focus. The reviewer also found text slightly easier to read than on Meta Quest 3, though not by much. Steam Frame starts at £889 for 256 GB in the UK. The review does not provide a Norwegian price or say whether Valve plans to add screen narration and color filters later.
Source: Access-Ability’s hands-on Steam Frame accessibility review from 5 October.