Steam Frame ships with monochrome passthrough. A $149 module from Arcturus Vision plugs into the expansion port Valve documented on its own spec sheet and replaces it with 5K HDR color. Valve certifies the module under a mark it calls Steam Frame Compatible, and the driver is already in the headset.
In short:
- The product: the Arcturus Vision Camera, $149.00 on the maker's own store, two 32MP RGB Sony sensors, under 10 grams, connecting through what Arcturus lists as the front expansion port.
- The port is Valve's, and it is published: the Steam Frame page lists a "User accessible front expansion port" carrying a "Dual high speed camera interface (8 lanes @ 2.5Gbps MIPI) / PCIe Gen 4 interface (1-lane)".
- The certification is Valve's too: Valve's page carries a Steam Frame Compatible Accessories section and states that "Products with the Steam Frame Compatible mark have been tested to work with Steam Frame."
- No install: Arcturus says passthrough support for its cameras "ships with Steam Frame and works immediately on plug-in", so the driver is in the headset rather than in a download.
- What Valve still says about its own headset: the Steam Frame spec sheet lists monochrome passthrough, and that has not changed. The color is an add-on.
What the Arcturus Vision Camera is
It is a stereo camera module for one headset and no other. Arcturus's own compatibility answer says the camera "is exclusively compatible with Steam Frame and will not work on any other headset", and the technical specifications give the connector as the front expansion port.
Arcturus publishes the full sheet rather than a headline figure, which is rarer in this category than it should be. Two 32MP RGB Sony sensors, spaced 64 mm apart. Passthrough up to 72 Hz at 5K, which Arcturus defines as 4928x2464 across both eyes, or up to 144 Hz at 2.5K, with a footnote saying 60 FPS is the default and 72 to 144 FPS needs "special config". Recording at 5K, 2464x2464 per eye, to a maximum of 60fps, or 2.5K at up to 120fps. A 125 by 105 degree binocular field of view, 25.5 pixels per degree at 5K center, 10-bit HDR in HLG, focus from 30 cm to infinity, curved glass with stainless steel and polycarbonate, and a weight given as under 10 grams.
The price is $149.00 with free standard shipping, and Arcturus lists a 1-year limited warranty and 14-day returns beside it. Arcturus says orders "ship at the same time as Steam Frame", which shipped on September 14, 2026. Outside Valve's direct markets the camera is also sold through KOMODO Station, which is the same distributor Valve uses for the headset in Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong. At $149.00 the module is 14 percent of the price of the $1,059 headset it plugs into, a ratio BestInXR's XR hardware price index tracks across the category from the manufacturer's own published figures.
Why the expansion port is the actual story
Most headsets treat accessories as straps, cases and charging docks. Valve published an interface instead.
The Expansion row of Valve's own spec list names a user accessible front expansion port and then says what runs through it: a dual high speed camera interface at 8 lanes of 2.5 Gbps MIPI, plus a single lane of PCIe Gen 4. That is not a mounting point, it is a camera bus and a PCIe link brought out to the front of a consumer headset.
Valve paired it with a compatibility mark. Its Steam Frame page carries a Steam Frame Compatible Accessories section whose own caption reads, in full, "Products with the Steam Frame Compatible mark have been tested to work with Steam Frame." Arcturus repeats the claim from its side, saying the camera "is certified Steam Frame Compatible".
The last piece is the one that makes the module feel first-party. Arcturus's software answer states that passthrough support for its cameras "ships with Steam Frame and works immediately on plug-in", with its downloadable apps covering recording, playback and desktop transfer rather than the passthrough itself. Read plainly, Valve put a third party's camera driver in the shipping operating system.
What else carries the mark
Two accessories sit in that section of Valve's page, and only one of them uses the port.
The Arcturus camera is the port product. The other is a Zenni prescription insert for Steam Frame, which Valve describes as "custom virtual reality lenses for Steam Frame" and Zenni prices at $67.95 for a single vision high-index 1.67 lens with a premium oil-resistant coating. Zenni's own page said the item was out of stock when it was read on September 29, 2026, and that page answers an automated request with a redirect loop while loading normally in a browser, so the stock line here is a browser reading and a snapshot.
Valve's own accessories are handled separately and are not in that section. Its accessories question says first-party parts, "the PSU, Accessories Replacement Kit, and Ergonomic Accessories Kit", "will only be available to customers purchasing their Steam Frame as part of the add-to-cart process". BestInXR's Steam Frame launch report records those at $29, $59 and $49.
What Arcturus publishes about itself, and the name collision
The camera business presents itself as the continuation of a company called Arcturus Industries, whose own site is now a one-page notice headed with both names, carrying the line "Our next chapter" and a link to the camera site. The Spirula Studio download on the apps page is signed by Arcturus Industries. The about page gives Bellevue and Madrid, says the founding team worked together at Occipital on RedLaser, the Structure Sensor, the Bridge headset and Canvas, and dates one entry at 2019 as "3D Passthrough for Index w/ Valve", describing "the first color 3D passthrough system for Valve's Index headset". The company that added color passthrough to a Valve headset in 2026 says it did the same thing for a Valve headset seven years earlier.
The company also publishes a regulatory compliance page dated August 4, 2026, listing FCC Part 15 Subpart B Class B, Canadian ICES-003, CE under EMC Directive 2014/30/EU, RoHS, REACH, UKCA, Swiss OEMC and Australian and New Zealand RCM, each marked compliant with the test standard named and Declaration of Conformity documents attached. That is more disclosure than most accessory makers offer and it is dated before the headset shipped.
One thing to separate, because a search will not. This company is not the Arcturus that BestInXR's volumetric video reference covers. That one is at arcturus.studio, its about page says its team pioneered volumetric video and that the company is changing how the world experiences sports, and it makes no headset accessory. Two different companies, two different domains, one first name.
The two free apps, and what they are for
Arcturus ships the camera with software and charges nothing for it. The Arcturus Vision Camera app on Steam is listed as free, developed and published by Arcturus Vision, released September 14, 2026, the day the headset shipped. Its Steam page calls it "the official companion app for the Arcturus Vision Camera accessory for Steam Frame", requires Arm64 and 550 MB, and lists Steam Frame as the only supported headset.
Arcturus Vision Gaussian XR is the second, free to play and released two weeks later on September 28, 2026. It plays 3D Gaussian splats natively on the headset and ships with eight example scenes that its store page says were all captured with the camera. A third piece, Arcturus Vision Sync, runs on Windows and Mac and converts recordings for other players, with Arcturus saying a Linux build is still to come.
The Gaussian splatting workflow is the part that is not consumer-ready, and Arcturus says so on its own apps page: the reconstruction runs through downloadable command-line scripts, Spirula Studio on Apple Silicon or a Linux machine with an NVIDIA or AMD GPU, or LichtFeld Studio with an NVIDIA GPU, and "Windows scripts are not yet supported".
What is not established here
BestInXR has not held the camera, so nothing in this report is a test result. Every figure above is the manufacturer's own published claim or Valve's, and image quality, latency and thermals are not assessed.
Arcturus publishes a comparison table setting its recording resolution, frame rate, field of view and bit depth against Apple Vision Pro, Meta Quest 3 and PICO 4 Ultra, naming its sources as each headset's own capture app or camera API. Those are a competitor's numbers about other companies' products and are reported here as that and nothing more.
Valve has published no statement about how a product earns the Steam Frame Compatible mark, what the testing consists of or whether the program is open to applications. The mark's own caption is the whole of the public description.
Related reading. The Steam Frame launch report has the price, the reservation queue and what is in the box, the first SteamOS update covers the compatibility badges, and the XR headset comparison puts Valve's spec sheet beside Meta, Apple, Samsung and Pico.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
1. Does Steam Frame have color passthrough?
Not on its own. Valve's Steam Frame specification lists monochrome passthrough, and that is still what the page says. Color passthrough comes from the Arcturus Vision Camera, a $149.00 third-party module that plugs into the headset's front expansion port and which Valve certifies as Steam Frame Compatible.
2. How much is the Arcturus Vision Camera and what do you get?
$149.00 on Arcturus's own store, with free standard shipping, a 1-year limited warranty and 14-day returns. The listing includes 5K HDR stereo passthrough, the spatial video recording and playback app, and the Sync app with video conversion. Arcturus says orders ship at the same time as Steam Frame.
3. What is the Steam Frame expansion port?
Valve's own spec list describes a "User accessible front expansion port" on Steam Frame carrying a "Dual high speed camera interface (8 lanes @ 2.5Gbps MIPI) / PCIe Gen 4 interface (1-lane)". It is the interface the Arcturus camera connects through, and Valve publishes no other accessory that uses it.
4. What does Steam Frame Compatible mean?
It is a mark Valve applies to accessories on its Steam Frame page. Valve's only published description of it reads "Products with the Steam Frame Compatible mark have been tested to work with Steam Frame." Valve does not publish the test criteria or say how a maker enters the program, and two products carry the mark on that page today: the Arcturus camera and a Zenni prescription lens insert.
5. Do you need to install anything to use the camera?
Arcturus says no. Its software answer states that passthrough support for its cameras ships with Steam Frame and works immediately on plug-in. The apps it distributes separately, on Steam and for Windows and Mac, handle spatial video recording, Gaussian splat viewing and transferring recordings to a computer rather than the passthrough itself.
