Valve's own code describes a Steam Frame with OLED screens. Steam Frame Hub found the codename Plano in the kernel source code Valve published for the headset, Road to VR reported, and the code ties it to Deckard, Valve's internal name for the Steam Frame.

The panels listed for Plano are OLED at 3,552 by 3,840 pixels per eye, nearly three times as many pixels as the current model. Steam Frame Hub says that's about the same count as Samsung's Galaxy XR. The Steam Frame people are ordering now uses LCD panels at 2,160 by 2,160 per eye.

Plano tops out at 90Hz, though, with an experimental 120Hz mode. Today's Steam Frame runs at 72 to 120Hz and offers 144Hz as an experimental option. If you play fast games and care about smooth motion, that's a step back on paper.

The code also sets Plano's default resolution at half its full pixel count, 1,776 by 1,920 per eye, and lists the same Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip the current Steam Frame runs on. Steam Frame Hub reads that as Valve aiming for roughly the same performance as today's model. The panels would be sharper, but the chip would have the same amount of work to do.

The last changes to the code landed on October 2, weeks after Steam Frame pre-orders opened on September 14, so someone was still working on it after launch. The code doesn't say whether Plano is a headset Valve plans to sell or a screen setup it tried and may drop. It might never ship at all.

Valve did the same with the Steam Deck. It launched with an LCD screen in February 2022, and the OLED model followed in November 2023, about 21 months later. Plano looks like the same move, made on the Frame.

Some Steam Frame reservation holders won't be invited to order until 2027, and Valve says the people in that group will hear more about their timing by January. A second model would land on top of a queue Valve is still working through.

The Deckard name itself first turned up in Valve's code in 2021, five years before pre-orders opened. So if you hold a reservation, don't give it up to wait for an OLED version. The LCD model is the one Valve is actually shipping. Treat Plano as a sign of where the headset could go, not as something to plan a purchase around.