What is Project Deckard? Let’s Get Caught up to Speed.
YouTuber Brad Lynch (SadlyItsBradley) has done it again and found evidence of a new headset by Valve codenamed Project Deckard in a SteamVR driver back in September 2021. Lynch’s original post suggested that with the details found in the driver files, Project Deckard is Valve’s answer to the Meta Quest in the stand-alone VR headset market.
For the more technical, he found a “Standalone System Layer” option and a Linux-only binary referencing Deckard, which he claims instructs the device to boot to a default program, were both discovered in the SteamVR’s secret “Valve Internal” menu tab. SteamOS is the name of Valve’s Linux distribution, and it’s what the Steam Deck uses.
What Does This Patent Filing Reveal? Key Highlights:
What a great month for patent filing reveals and Brad Lynch reveals. Just two weeks ago we covered Meta’s Project Cambria schematics, and now we get to take a look into Valve’s upcoming project. Although not much can be deciphered from the drawings, we have found some notable information to share.
- It appears that it has the same tension adjustment as on the Valve Index, with an added secondary adjustments for the top strap (which is just velcro on the Valve Index)
- Seemingly Larger Speakers
- Seemingly Wider Facial interface (Larger FoV?)
- Wifi6 and Hotspot creation for PCVR connectivity.
Lynch suggested this week that SteamVR will make it easy for PCs with Wi-Fi to create a hotspot directly to the headset – directly competing in features with the Quest where Meta is seemingly planning to do with a USB dongle. The SteamVR settings already show this functionality is in the works for connecting the Deckard wirelessly for PCVR connectivity. As always, we’ll post new updates as they become available.
Joel Forest