If you own a Valve Index headset, chances are you know how hot the headset can get. Valve has made the most powerful consumer-friendly headset on the market. The display is top-level, the speakers are spatially aware at all times, and the refresh rate is always sitting at 120Hz. There was no shortcuts taken when making this headset the most powerful. This headset packed with so much tech that the company may have forgotten one important, yet small aspect. An in-headset cooling system.
When you are playing games for anything less than 30 minutes, you won’t recognize the heat. When you start playing high-end games for a while, you’ll start to feel the headset heat your face up. This isn’t a desirable feeling. There haven’t been any hardware or software updates from Valve to fix this, so it has been up to the community to find some solutions. Ours was simple. Play in a very cold room and don’t stay in the headset for too long. Is there a better solution than that? Yes. Thanks to Kyle Federicks, people can start playing the Valve Index without some extra sweat.
Fredericks Hardware
Kyle Fredericks is a veteran product designer that specializes in mechanical engineering and electrical design. He has designed and produced a cooling mod for the Valve Index that is cutting the heat inside the headset with out having to have a cold face, wind on your face, or anything else uncomfortable. This is powered by the typical USB type A inside of the screen plate on the headset.
The cooling module is simple and small, but it gets the job done. There are two different options. The Chilldex Standard and the Chilldex Pemium. Both of these options incorporate the Aperture Lab logo, which is pretty fun to have on your face while you play your VR games.
The standard and premium both are going to cool your headset, but there is still a noticeable difference. The premium option has automatic tempature detection. That means that fan will only start if the headset is overheating. Your first few minutes in the headset won’t have the fan running on your headset if it doesn’t need it. This doesn’t mean the standard edition isn’t good, as you won’t notice too much when the fan is on anyway.
The Campaign
This is a Kickstarter campaign from Fredericks. He still has 18 days to go, but at the time of the writing, he is already $26,000 pledged and only had a $19,000 goal. This is going to be well funded. In fact, he has already started ‘limited production’ on the hardware.
“I started this project as a response to being fed-up with the amount of sweat building up in the headset, literally after a few songs of Beat Saber, sweat would be beading up near my forehead and getting in my eyes,” states Fredericks on the official Kickstarter page. “ I was just overall unsatisfied with the level of heat in the headset. I drew the line when I was making the headset damp playing moss which is a sit-down game. With Halflife: Alyx around the corner, longer and longer play sessions are becoming the norm.”
This is going to be the premier way to cool your Valve headset for the time being. For more VR news and community updates, make sure to check back at VRGear.com.
