My favourite thing to do in VR is to explore and create virtual environments of real world locations. This form of virtual tourism is something I have fallen in love with over the past ten years, and the medium I have used most has been SteamVR Home.
However, recently, when you load up SteamVR in a headset, you are met with something that looks like this.
Looking at this, some might think that SteamVR Home has been removed, or they may not know it exists at all. As someone whose hobby exists within this niche ecosystem, I thought I would clarify the current state of SteamVR Home.
This is the new Aurora environment created for the Steam
Frame launch. It is kind of nice. It feels like you're standing in this
giant, glossy holodeck space, and you can use this nice little iris
selector to change the colours, along with a few other effects within
the environment. This was added to SteamVR during version 2.18.1, released the 24th of September 2026 and now the default environment.
The previous branch of SteamVR didn't have this, and instead would load SteamVR Home by default.
In the SteamVR settings, you can see that SteamVR Home used to be set to on by default.
Now, if you are on the current branch of SteamVR, it is selected to off by default. It is also higher up on the list, though I don't think that means anything.
So, it is not gone. It is just disabled by default. This is most likely because SteamVR Home was running on an old version of Source 2 originally made for Destinations and wasn't particularly well optimised in the first place. Valve would presumably want the startup experience on the Steam Frame's standalone hardware to run well, and an environment like Aurora is nice and impressive while also being very compute-light compared to SteamVR Home.
However, when you turn SteamVR Home on in the current branch, it loads up like this, as usual. You can still access it, and you can still make it load by default.
One little caveat is that the SteamVR Dashboard now appears straight away. This actually happened a while ago, during version 2.17.4, when Valve updated SteamVR's UI. Personally, I don't like this. I have always seen SteamVR Home as sort of my desktop background for Virtual Reality. When I put on my VR headset, I want to be transported somewhere. I want to feel like I am physically standing somewhere else. Instead, I am looking at a store page or library, and I have to press the Steam button before I can properly see and be immersed in the environment. I preferred how it worked previously. That aside, as you can see, SteamVR Home is still there and is still something you can enable by default.
Whether this is a slow way of sunsetting SteamVR Home, I don't know. It's a bit confusing but it is at least benefiting from wider the updates to Steam.
For example, in SteamVR's properties there is a Workshop tab where you can easily sort your Workshop items and see what environments you have downloaded. They do have a nice setup there, although this Workshop tab is part of Steam's general application properties system rather than something specifically created for SteamVR Home. (It is also important to note that this is separate from the SteamVR settings and I wish Valve would consolidate this somewhat).
Like a lot of Valve software, I don't think they're ever going to fully delete SteamVR Home. But I also don't see it being updated unless it is entirely overhauled. And, if the launch of the Steam Frame wasn't a reason to entirely overhaul SteamVR Home, re-enable its social features and bring it back into focus, then I think it's unlikely to happen.
Perhaps the Steam Frame's ability to play flatscreen games on virtual displays could provide a reason for Valve to work on environments again. People may want to sit inside an immersive space, somewhat like the Bigscreen application, while playing their games. I could see that being developed further. Whether that would actually be SteamVR Home or something else, I'm not sure.
I just wanted to write this mainly to clarify the current state of SteamVR Home from a software and interface perspective, that is hasn't been removed and how you now access it. The experience itself is still just as good as it ever was. There are still creators making beautiful and amazing environments, and it can still be a really nice virtual tourism experience worth your time.
SteamVR Home is still here. It’s just no longer the place to call home by default.
Ker Blam,
--Puffy
SteamVR Home and the workshop tools (for what they are) are generally stable. I think the Steam Frame would benefit from an android port. Most people should and probably did disable it from starting by default, but it's still point in it's favor that you can renable that. Though, ideally, this should change to a setting whereby the user might be able to choose an entirely different 'startup application', as can be done with dash-less Airlink.
ReplyDeleteI'd love it if the workshop would tell what background images are spam uploads and hide them as incompatible, that would be the first thing I would do to clean up the workshop. Maybe finally remove the controller model support too. There is a large amount of good content in the workshop and a fresh infusion of players consuming content would spark an improvement in curation.
I only expect a trickle of new destinations arriving going forward. Most are likely to use Alyx instead. Still though, the tools and engine tech are fine. One could easily use it to make a VR game, and ship it for free, an a VR focused engine that isnt unity or unreal.
Hello Puffy! Your Infos about Steam VR Home are very interesting. I am new to VR. I use it since 2 month on PC (PSVR2 with Sony PC Adapter). I liked it to make my individual own environemt on Steam VR Home. But it seems completely broken to me. After starting up i see my Home Environment for a few seconds, then it freezes and changes over to the standard holodeck. I have tried everything to solve the Problem. NVIDIA Geforce 5070 RTX ti Drivers complete new instalation / Steam VR Home Off and On settings changed / Steam Folder completely deleted and Steam fresh installed / OPENXR approved but nothing worked for me. I give it up. I think Steam sets their focus with steam frame to 100% on the holodeck instead of Steam VR Home.
ReplyDeleteI got my Steam Frame. I tried to enable SteamVR Home but nothing happen when I toggle to yes. I try to reboot thr headset, still only Aurora. I use to love SteamVR Home, and did some customization a few years back at the time I still have my Vive.
ReplyDeleteWhat else should I do to get it on the Frame ?