Steam Link App Seemingly Coming To Pico & HTC Vive Standalone Headsets

Valve’s Steam Link app is seemingly coming to Pico and HTC Vive standalone headsets, datamining suggests.

References to ByteDance’s Pico headsets in the Steam Link app were first spotted by VR enthusiast Luna, who discovered back in November that the app already runs on Pico headsets if sideloaded, with “some minor quirks”. Both Quest and Pico are Android-based systems that support OpenXR, which the Steam Link app uses.

Then, in January, VR enthusiast Brad Lynch’s Discord datamining group discovered Pico 4 and Pico 4 Ultra controller icons in SteamVR, another step in the process of supporting the headsets.

Now, Lynch’s team has discovered references to HTC’s Vive Focus 3 and Vive Focus Vision standalone headsets, suggesting Valve plans to make the Steam Link VR app available for all widely available Android-based standalone VR headsets.

Of course, it’s also possible that Valve just wants to make the app work well when sideloaded. But it would make much more sense for the company to bring the app to Pico and HTC’s app stores, as it did with Meta’s in late 2023.

The discovery comes as Lynch’s team also found references to a “SteamVR Link Dongle” device, which could improve the reliability of wireless PC VR compared to using your existing home Wi-Fi network.

Lynch suggests Valve could include the SteamVR Link Dongle in the box of Deckard, the company’s upcoming headset now rumored to be launching this year, and this seems highly likely. But I suspect it could support Quest, Pico, and HTC headsets too, improving the experience of using SteamVR wirelessly no matter which standalone VR headset you own.

Valve Working On “SteamVR Link Dongle” For Reliable Wireless PC VR

Valve is working on a “SteamVR Link Dongle”, datamining reveals, and it could improve the reliability of affordable wireless PC VR.

UploadVRDavid Heaney