Direct Drive on a Budget? Feel VR Kickstarter is Here, But Act Fast!

[Paul Jeffrey]

We heard about the FeelVR Direct Drive wheel project back at the 2017 Sim Racing Expo, and now the plans are a reality with a new Kickstarter campaign launched today.

The team behind Feel VR had an ambitious target to develop and ship a Direct Drive wheel and pedal set for considerably less than any other DD product on the market, and it looks like they are now finally in a position to open up the long awaited Kickstarter campaign, having already surpassed their funding target in just 75 minutes!

At the time of writing the campaign has received over $200,000 in the first day, and if you want to take home an early bird discount you only have the rest of today to act!

I spent a considerable amount of time on a Skype video call with the team at the back end of last year, and it looks like the plans they have in place are very solid and well thought out, with several demonstration models already in action even back in 2017. In fact, the team would be at the Sim Racing Expo in September of last year, although unfortunately we didn't get an opportunity to pop over and say hi whilst we were on site ourselves.

So what is it the team are offering exactly? Well if done correctly, this could be something of a game changer for sim racers looking to invest in direct drive wheel technology - the team are offering a full Direct Drive wheel, and pedals, for the same price as a traditional mid range standard wheel setup.

At present "early bird" investors on Kickstarter can order a DD wheel, two rims (GT and Formula), all the cables and a set of load cell brakes for.... $549! That's cheap.. very cheap indeed..

So what does it look like, and what are the specs? Read on to find out..

The Wheel

As for the pedals, the team at Feel VR have developed an affordable load cell unit that promises to offer a more detailed and consistent performance that traditional spring loaded versions, as anyone who has tried loadcell can testify I'm sure, and if you wanted to pick them up as a standalone item, early bird prices are $149!

The Pedals

All sounds pretty good on paper, let's see what happens once the units begin to ship towards the end of the year...

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Like the look of these offerings from FeelVR? Will you be investing? Can a budget DD set such as this compete in a competitive marketplace, in your opinion? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[wajdi]

2 months ago I was interested in this DD wheel but now I have the ts-pc steering wheel and it’s really a great product. I have tried a DD steering wheel and they are really great but now I’m very satisfied with my ts-pc and I won’t invest in a risky project.

 

[Yollygamer]

looks good

 

[Turk]

People expect a higher price for a higher rated product and obviously each manufacturer large or small does (or supposed to) know that. So why go significantly cheaper then your competition? Makes sense?

There's more to it than that even. I was involved in a product for the medical industry, it was the best product in it's class and also half the price of every other product in it's class, but it turned out people didn't trust it because it was so much cheaper. They assumed it must be worse and it's hard to change that mind set.

My issue with this wheel is all down to how are they going to make it? Making a prototype that works is a completely different thing from making something that can go into a production line. They have no experience in mass production as far as I can see. I could be wrong, maybe they've all got experience working for larger companies. I don't know, that kind of information isn't there.

There's nothing radically different about this product that we can point to to say, ah, that's where they're making the saving. They're going to have to make the saving on the factory floor during production at some stage and I don't have confidence they can compete with the companies already out there.

I wish them the best and all, I hope they succeed, but I'm not going to gamble on the product, at the moment it's a bit of a unicorn still.

 

[JJ72]

Sounds great looks awfull

A lot of the cosmetic stuff looks like can be bolted on and off quite easily.

 

[Leynad777]

A demo wheel failed during one YouTuber's test.
DD wheels aren't ever supposed to fail. That's kind of their thing.

Not only this one. I visited the Expo last year and that unit there failed as well when i wanted to test it. At least their presentation seemed a bit more professional than this try-out-event somewhere in the US. It was at least all fixed to a motion-rig instead of a table with walking pedals below

The biggest difference with other DD-wheels seems the integrated power-supply(?) and controller unit and this is may cause issues with temps or other interference. But i hope i'm wrong...

 

[Iltarix Ilyar]

So it ships to Malta and Cyprus too ey?

We in Canada just play our hockey ey?

 

[Conrad Miller]

If this is a 'serious' product, why have they designed it to look like a child's toy?
I think the aesthetics of all components are absolutely horrendous - a first-year industrial design student could have done much better. The current design cheapens the overall package. Even the colour scheme looks awful.

That's why it's called Feel VR.
VR users can feel the FFB without having to look at the awful design.

 

[Ghoults]

Looks wise the wheel would look just fine without the red bat logo on top and the red clamps. The red clamps could just be black or left as bare metal as well. The biggest issue for me is that the wheel seems taller than other wheels which can be annoying if the wheel ends up too high.

A demo wheel failed during one YouTuber's test.
DD wheels aren't ever supposed to fail. That's kind of their thing.

Technically it is the motor itself of the dd wheel that is not supposed to fail ever. But the other electronics are just electronics. I don't remember if it was specifically the motor that failed in the feelvr wheel or something else? Was it overheating or was it really the motor that died?

 

[GRaFkiyv]

I would like to buy only pedals, but with my immortal FF EX they will not earn.
P.S.The steering wheel is 600W ....ohoooo - you need to clean your hand from the steering wheel before the blow to the wall.

 

[ShredatorFIN]

Just because it's cheap it has to look dumb? Should be 100% black without silly decorations. Also the name is stupid, it doesn't have anything to do with VR. Bad judgment on so simple things doesn't put best possible faith into what components lie inside.

On the other hand, Thrustmaster has also a dumb name, which leads to believe it's not sim racing equipment at all, but totally different kind of "equipment".

 

[Ghoults]

I don't think the name is stupid. If you take the name feelvr and extrapolate from it a little you get "feel the vr" which is pretty spot on for a force feedback device. It is not perfect because a ffb steering wheel is not a vr device but maybe adding the vr bit into the name makes it seem more relevant in the current hardware markets.

There is also a positive side to the ugly looks. Maybe more of the work is going towards functionality and aesthetics is taking a second seat. This sounds a bit sellout thing to say and I'd definitely keep my hopes modest. November launch is very optimistic considering they don't have working drivers or even trouble free unit design yet. November is just 6 months away.

 

[ShredatorFIN]

Well I won't care about looks or name if it's a DD wheel that doesn't break down.

Just why mess up so simple thing like the looks. People who would get a DD wheel, are probably sim enthusiasts who want certain look that fits to their rig. Not some people who tried VR and then go "That was cool, let's try one of those wheel thingies"

Cautiously interested

 

[Damage Inc]

I'm surprised by the amount of Latin American people here, feels good to not be alone but is the same story as ever, we don't count as potential customers because we live in countries nobody in the "developed world" cares about.

Please don't dump everyone in the "developed world" together, it's rich business people and they care about no-one but themselves and the almighty dollar. Poor working class in the "developed world" have been shafted by these rich from day one and continue to be shafted.

 

[Urlauber]

I would be very, very careful investing in this. Here's a report of a guy who went to a "public beta test":
https://www.reddit.com/r/simracing/comments/87m4jv/feelvr_direct_drive_wheel_pedals_hands_on/

 

[acidburn82uk]

Biggest issue, that I've not heard anything on for a while now, is the lack of a dedicated driver application... last I seen anything about the software side of things said they didn't have this developed. Any one got any news on this?

 

[Turk]

Well I won't care about looks or name if it's a DD wheel that doesn't break down.

Just why mess up so simple thing like the looks. People who would get a DD wheel, are probably sim enthusiasts who want certain look that fits to their rig. Not some people who tried VR and then go "That was cool, let's try one of those wheel thingies"

Cautiously interested

I wouldn't hold that against them too much. This is a prototype after all. Typically prototypes are using off the shelf parts that are large and bulky. It could potentially look a lot different once it's redesigned for production using bespoke parts. Just think of the difference between the Oculus rift DK1 and the CV rift. This currently isn't even at DK1 stage, as far as I can see, so I don't know if kickstarters are going to be getting hand made prototypes or actual production models. If they have to hand make the models for the kickstarters I don't see how they can cover that cost and do R&D on the production model, unless there's funding coming from somewhere else too, which is entirely possible.

Of course, all this kind of stuff could be happening in the background and they just can't talk about it while deals are being made. But people need to be aware they are not buying a DD wheel when they fund this kickstarter. They are investing/gambling on a bunch of lads that think they can design and mass produce a DD wheel, and those lads will send you a wheel if/when they succeed in getting that product into production.

Only people willing to lose that money should consider "investing", people actually in the market for a wheel should either wait until it hits the market, or buy from a reputable company.

 

[Brandon Wright]

Apparently the Feel VR guys are in Indy doing a demo at the Motor Speedway tomorrow. I'm planning to go down and check it out. Not really in the market for one but I love playing with new toys and will hopefully be able to provide some hands-on info.

https://www.meetup.com/VR-Sim-Racers-Indianapolis/events/249725636/?_cookie-check=la5mIWeqmlBzVUhN

 

[hotak]

I decided to pre-order it with the early-bird discount.
The money won't be taken untill may 25, so i'll have time to retire the pre-order if i see too many negative impressions in the early reviews, hope they manage to finish this project.
The specs are quite impressive, if the reported failures are because of overheating i'll just add some more fans to it, also have a few CPU coolers around, i may adapt one of them to the motor or the control board.

 

[testdriver77]

Nice try maybe but i dont need such a combo.
This discussion about high torque of DD-wheels is funny.

I use the TS-PC and the Fanatecs V3 Pedals.
Using the TS-PC at 75% of its torque and its more the enough.
From time to time we race on the Schleife and i am around 3-4h on the wheel.
I dont need more. The wheel is really cool.
And my wheel is hard mounted on a big office desk and the desk is mounted to the wall because i was able to move it. So you can imagine now if this wheel has enough torque or if a DD-wheel is necessary...

 

[Brandon Wright]

Nice try maybe but i dont need such a combo.
This discussion about high torque of DD-wheels is funny.

I use the TS-PC and the Fanatecs V3 Pedals.
Using the TS-PC at 75% of its torque and its more the enough.
From time to time we race on the Schleife and i am around 3-4h on the wheel.
I dont need more. The wheel is really cool.
And my wheel is hard mounted on a big office desk and the desk is mounted to the wall because i was able to move it. So you can imagine now if this wheel has enough torque or if a DD-wheel is necessary...

Happy for you. I used to think I'd always be happy with my G27, then I got a T300 and was really impressed with how much better it was even though I ran it about the same strength. Couple years later got a CSW V2 and was really amazed at how much better it was than T300 even though I ran it at about the same strength. Point being, there's a lot more to it than just raw power.