Steam Frame OLED VR headset leaks, codenamed Plano
Valve has just launched its next-generation VR headset, the Steam Frame, and the next upgraded model already appears to be surfacing. According to Steam Frame Hub's digging into Valve's publicly available Linux kernel source code, Valve is internally developing a new project codenamed "Plano," which contains a large amount of code related to an OLED version of the Steam Frame. The development branch is named "deckard-plano" and clearly inherits from the earlier "deckard-oled" project. More notably, this branch was still being updated as recently as October 2, 2026, so it is likely not an abandoned early test project.
Based on the information exposed so far, the biggest upgrade of the Steam Frame OLED is naturally the display system. The current Steam Frame uses two 2160×2160 LCD panels, while the Micro-OLED panel appearing in the "Plano" project reaches 3552×3840 per eye, with nearly 3 times the pixel count of the current model. However, the higher screen specifications also bring new performance challenges. Leaked information shows that this Micro-OLED panel natively supports 90Hz, and Valve is also testing a 120Hz mode; by comparison, the current Steam Frame supports 72Hz to 120Hz and offers an experimental 144Hz mode.
The current Steam Frame itself already adopts this "streaming-first + standalone operation" design. It is equipped with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and 16GB of RAM, can run some games standalone through SteamOS, and can also connect wirelessly to a PC to stream high-quality PC VR content to the headset. Valve also uses eye tracking to enable foveated streaming, dynamically allocating bitrate based on where the player is currently looking, reducing wireless transmission pressure while maintaining image quality in the center of the field of view as much as possible. Therefore, even if the OLED version greatly increases panel resolution, it does not necessarily mean the host device needs to continuously output the full native 3552×3840×2 image.
Of course, what needs to be emphasized most right now is that the Steam Frame OLED has not yet been officially confirmed by Valve. At this stage, all that can be confirmed is that a related development branch exists in Valve's source code, and the code is still quite incomplete.
