SteamOS 0.4.3 adds up to 12% more Steam Frame battery life, Valve says
Valve says the newest Steam Frame beta improves the headset's power efficiency and battery lifetime "with gains of up to 12%", and that figure is Valve's claim rather than a measured result. SteamOS 0.4.3 (Beta) went out on October 1 at 18:23 UTC, to owners who have opted their headset into the Beta channel.
The Steam Frame between its controllers in Valve's own product shot. Valve's claim covers streaming from a PC and local play. Image: Valve
Valve's release notes put the claim as "Improved power efficiency and battery lifetime during both streaming and local gameplay, with gains of up to 12%", and Valve attaches a caveat of its own: results vary with framerate and content. Those are the two activities Valve names, streaming a game from a PC and playing one locally on the headset.
Valve puts no runtime figure behind the percentage
Power efficiency and battery lifetime share one number, and Valve does not split the 12% between them. Valve gives no runtime for the Frame before or after the change either, so there is no baseline to apply the gain to.
"Up to 12%" is a ceiling rather than a typical result, and because it is a percentage it scales with whatever runtime a given game produces, adding little to a short session and more to a long one. Valve names no game, framerate or resolution at which the full 12% turns up.
The two activities load the headset differently. Streaming leans on the Frame's radio and video decoder, while local play runs the game on the headset's own chip, and Valve attaches the same "up to 12%" to both. Standby, charging and idle time in the dashboard sit outside the claim altogether.
The Frame's battery is 20.9 Wh and glued in
Battery life was one of the two things the first Steam Frame reviews flagged, alongside the price, when the headset went on sale on September 14. iFixit's teardown put the cell at 20.9 Wh and glued into the housing, with no spare on sale, which leaves software as the only route to a longer session.
Valve has changed the Frame's power behaviour before without putting a figure on runtime. SteamOS 0.3.0 promised "Substantially faster charging while unit is off / sleeping" on September 17, and a Steam client update for the headset, which Valve dates September 25, added support for "Show Battery Percentage" in the dashboard bar. Neither 0.4.1 nor 0.4.2 claimed any power gain, so 12% is the first such figure Valve has given for a Frame update.
A software gain counts for more on a sealed battery than on a headset with a swappable pack. What the gain is measured against is the part Valve leaves out, and the headset's own charge indicator is the only instrument most owners have to judge it with.
You have to opt into the Beta channel to get it
Valve's instruction is Settings > System > System Update Channel, and Valve says the build "includes new features that are still being tested". It is the third Steam Frame OS beta in six days, after the 0.4.1 build that fixed the streaming keyboard on September 26 and 0.4.2 on September 29.
Nobody on the stable channel has any of this. The Beta channel is opt-in per headset, so Valve's 12% claim reaches only the owners who have switched that setting, which is also the group whose reports will test it.
The same release carries SteamVR 2.18.2 inside it, in Valve's words "This OS release includes SteamVR (2.18.2)", along with a fix for wireless adapter connectivity that affected users in some countries. Valve does not say when 0.4.3, or the battery gains it claims, reach the stable channel.
