Beam Eye Tracker - affordable head tracking?

[Beirut]

This looks promising. And affordable. Amazon Canada has the Tobii at $450 and TrackIR at almost $300.  This is $40 for the program and just needs a webcam,  which I might order tonight.

 

Has anyone tried this yet? 

 

 

[Wostg]

Try the demo for sure but afaik it uses opentrack - compare beam against the 'neuralnet' model available for free within opentrack first I reckon. Get all the curves right and it's pretty good! 

[SharpeXB]

14 hours ago, Beirut said:

Amazon Canada has the Tobii at $450 and TrackIR at almost $300

Surprising TrackIR always seems to be so expensive outside the US. If those are Canadian $ that’s $222 vs $150 US. Not a huge difference but… honestly still worth it

[Beirut]

10 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

Surprising TrackIR always seems to be so expensive outside the US. If those are Canadian $ that’s $222 vs $150 US. Not a huge difference but… honestly still worth it

 

I'd like a TrackIR, but I hate the idea of paying ~$300Cdn for it. And $450 for the Tobii is just insulting. That's over $500 tax included. You're getting into the price range of a VR headset.

 

$300 to $450 strikes me as very rude. It's a webcam and some IR reflectors, more or less, and they're charging as if it's NASA tech. $40 for this Beam Tracker thing seems just about right.

[SharpeXB]

28 minutes ago, Beirut said:

 

I'd like a TrackIR, but I hate the idea of paying ~$300Cdn for it. And $450 for the Tobii is just insulting. That's over $500 tax included. You're getting into the price range of a VR headset.

 

$300 to $450 strikes me as very rude. It's a webcam and some IR reflectors, more or less, and they're charging as if it's NASA tech. $40 for this Beam Tracker thing seems just about right.

The price you’re seeing in CA is inflated. By tariffs or whatever. The US cost for one even including taxes and shipping is like $170 US / $230 CA. Considering disposable income in the US is 1.5x Canadian that makes the price look like $150 CD. TrackIR is a very cheap accessory here. Like the cost of a gaming mouse. It only appears expensive in other countries due to all those factors. The device is basically a 120Hz webcam and you could pay as much for one of those. Then there’s the software. It’s a good value at its genuine price. 

Edited April 5, 2024 by SharpeXB

[Beirut]

Just now, SharpeXB said:

The price you’re seeing in CA is inflated. By tariffs or whatever. The US cost for one even including taxes and shipping is like $170 US / $230 CA. Considering disposable income in the US is 1.5x Canadian that makes the price look like $150 CD. TrackIR is a very cheap accessory here. Like the cost of a gaming mouse. It only appears expensive in other countries due to all those factors. 

 

It's not cheap living in the greatest country in the world. 

 

TrackIR would be about $240 tax included in that funny green money you guys use. That's a couple of bucks. 

[SharpeXB]

9 minutes ago, Beirut said:

 

It's not cheap living in the greatest country in the world. 

Well we don’t get any free healthcare or education or anything. So it kinda evens out. 
Cheers

Edited April 5, 2024 by SharpeXB

[Beirut]

53 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

Well we don’t get any free healthcare or education or anything. So it kinda evens out. 
Cheers

 

But God gave you The Holy Land.

 

And Kentucky be thy name. 

[mkel2010]

I started playing DCS a short time ago and began with Opentrack and it's built in Neuralnet tracker. I wasn't happy with all the jumping around I got with the video using it. 

Yesterday I found out about Beam Eye and after watching a couple videos purchased the standalone version. I'm still playing with the configuration but I will say it's much more stable than the Neuralnet tracker. 

[Wostg]

Has anyone tried Tobii's webcam solution (there was a beta for some? laptops on steam I think) as I guess that will be Beam's commercial rival

[Beirut]

7 hours ago, mkel2010 said:

I started playing DCS a short time ago and began with Opentrack and it's built in Neuralnet tracker. I wasn't happy with all the jumping around I got with the video using it. 

Yesterday I found out about Beam Eye and after watching a couple videos purchased the standalone version. I'm still playing with the configuration but I will say it's much more stable than the Neuralnet tracker. 

 

Glad to hear you like it. Just ordered a webcam, should be here Sunday, and I'll be trying out the Beam Tracker demo. Looking forward to some of that 6DoF goodness. 

 

I had a $10 head tracking app from Google Play, worked off my phone, but it was too jumpy, didn't use it much at all. But the A-10C cockpit at night was gorgeous to look at with that thing. 

[mkel2010]

17 hours ago, Beirut said:

 

Glad to hear you like it. Just ordered a webcam, should be here Sunday, and I'll be trying out the Beam Tracker demo. Looking forward to some of that 6DoF goodness. 

 

I had a $10 head tracking app from Google Play, worked off my phone, but it was too jumpy, didn't use it much at all. But the A-10C cockpit at night was gorgeous to look at with that thing. 

One thing I've noticed is that Beam Eye takes control of the camera so you won't see an image any more with Opentrack's interface. It also means that you'll need to shut down Beam Eye to turn off the camera. Previously with Opentrack by itself stopping tracking also shut off the camera. 

With Beam Eye, you'll also have the option of different resolutions from your camera, depending on the camera. It's another setting to be aware of if you have issues.

Edited April 6, 2024 by mkel2010

[Beirut]

3 hours ago, mkel2010 said:

One thing I've noticed is that Beam Eye takes control of the camera so you won't see an image any more with Opentrack's interface. It also means that you'll need to shut down Beam Eye to turn off the camera. Previously with Opentrack by itself stopping tracking also shut off the camera. 

With Beam Eye, you'll also have the option of different resolutions from your camera, depending on the camera. It's another setting to be aware of if you have issues.

 

Thank you for that.

 

And it seems Amazon is delivering my webcam a day early so I get to try it out tonight. 

[Beirut]

Oof! Not easy getting used to head tracking. Going to take a while to get the settings right. It's either too wild or too tame. Not to mention sitting in the same position. Hard to change 25 years of flightsim habits.

 

But the eye tracking is wild. Hold your head still and just look to the left and there the camera goes.  Pretty funky. 

[mkel2010]

Three places to "fiddle" with things: The Beam Eye Tracker settings (they each have a tool tip to let you know what they do.) Second, the Mapping and Accela Filters in Opentrack. And finally the in-game TrackIR settings for each axis (Filter Axis commands only, then look at the settings for Pitch, Yaw and Roll first.) 

Best way to do this is to get everything running in the game and then adjust each setting and check the results (Alt-Tab to get to Opentrack; once that's open over DCS, you can access Beam Eye from the Windows task bar to get to Beam Eye.) You can set dead zones in Mapping on Opentrack as well as turning distances for your head vs. in-game. With the in-game settings, you want to play with Dead Zones, Saturation and Curves (negative curves seems to work the best for me.) 

Also, don't forget to configure a Center Keybind in Beam Eye. I have it mapped to a button on my joystick. If the view your seeing starts to get out of control, a quick push of the button will center everything up.

[Beirut]

2 hours ago, mkel2010 said:

Three places to "fiddle" with things: The Beam Eye Tracker settings (they each have a tool tip to let you know what they do.) Second, the Mapping and Accela Filters in Opentrack. And finally the in-game TrackIR settings for each axis (Filter Axis commands only, then look at the settings for Pitch, Yaw and Roll first.) 

Best way to do this is to get everything running in the game and then adjust each setting and check the results (Alt-Tab to get to Opentrack; once that's open over DCS, you can access Beam Eye from the Windows task bar to get to Beam Eye.) You can set dead zones in Mapping on Opentrack as well as turning distances for your head vs. in-game. With the in-game settings, you want to play with Dead Zones, Saturation and Curves (negative curves seems to work the best for me.) 

Also, don't forget to configure a Center Keybind in Beam Eye. I have it mapped to a button on my joystick. If the view your seeing starts to get out of control, a quick push of the button will center everything up.

 

Thanks! 

 

For some odd reason, the key I binded (is that a word?) for centering keeps unbinding itself. Don't know why. Not a big deal, but odd.

[MAXsenna]

 
Thanks! 
 
For some odd reason, the key I binded (is that a word?) for centering keeps unbinding itself. Don't know why. Not a big deal, but odd.

Bound!

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[mkel2010]

3 hours ago, Beirut said:

 

Thanks! 

 

For some odd reason, the key I binded (is that a word?) for centering keeps unbinding itself. Don't know why. Not a big deal, but odd.

"Bound"

I'd make sure you haven't got it bound to a different, conflicting action either in the game or with Windows. I haven't had that issue, although I have had an issue with DCS randomly loosing other  keybinds on my joystick.

[Beirut]

1 hour ago, MAXsenna said:

Bound!

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk
 

 

I think I had a senior moment.  

[eaglefirefly]

Just got this yesterday and I have to say. It is impressive

[Bigity]

I prefer it over my Grass Monkey Puck, but I have a good camera (elgato facecam 2)  and mostly just don't like to wear a headset/headband for the IR tracker.