A review of the prototype ED-Tracker wireless.

Maxmilian Czhilli · Aug 24, 2016

I tried using my phone like our monkey friend. I found the extra weight just too uncomfortable to use it for anything but short sessions.

I now use the wired ED Tracker Pro paired with Opentrack to mimic Track IR. It takes a bit of tweaking to get things just right. I couldn't be happier with it. Super responsive and smooth once you tweaked the filtering in Opentrack. Weighs almost nothing too, in fact the cable is the heavies bit, but as I used wired headphones it is no inconvenience being wired.

Head-tracking really makes a huge difference especially in combat. It also really adds to the feeling of spatial depth. I still get a kick out of leaving an outpost in a backwards curve, hitting boost and watching the station disappear above my head and behind me.

bofhenator · Aug 24, 2016

brumster said:
Response-wise, it's no *quicker* than a wired, and it's probably realistic to say it's technically slower than a wired - I mean, it has to be given the technology - but is it noticeable? I don't believe so - we must be talking milliseconds, or fractions thereof. We've not quantified it yet until the boards and dongles are finalised. None of the alpha testers have pointed out a problem, and many of them have had wired EDTrackers previously, so we're not worried in this aspect.

I haven't had any latencyproblems what-so-ever with either my homebrew or the pro, so even if its slightly slower I doubt it would be a problem at all!

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Kicks said:
Hope that helps, sorry for my wording.

No worries

I'll buy it anyways, if only to strap it to my cat...

Martin Schou · Aug 24, 2016

brumster said:
On the battery front, in testing we've seen around 12 hours of constant playtime on the current 300mAH battery. Current plan is to keep it close to that, but obviously if the battery spec changes it might change. But that's the current plan. Standby time (ie. leaving it still, but not switching the switch off) is... well, I honestly gave up timing it after 4 weeks, so I don't know.... but it's enough!

Given that it's a rechargeable battery, is it possible to recharge it while using it? I've accumulated more than 26 weeks of gametime in Elite so far, and I have been known to exceed 12 hour sessions.

Blairvoyach · Aug 24, 2016

Martin Schou said:
Given that it's a rechargeable battery, is it possible to recharge it while using it? I've accumulated more than 26 weeks of gametime in Elite so far, and I have been known to exceed 12 hour sessions.

Yes, if it needs charging whilst playing, just plug it into a USB port and continue.

I have the 150mah version and get approx 5-6 hours out of it in one continuous sitting. I've just fitted a 300mah battery and it's at least doubled that altough I don't have the stamina to play even ED for that amount of time.

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BTW, I'd just like to echo all that Kicks has said about the wireless EdTracker. It really is the EDTracker pro with all the accuracy, low latency, ease of use etc. but minus the wires. Once again, the team has done an outstanding job. I really, really hope this gets released.

Dizzy B High · Aug 31, 2016

I can confrim that the EDTracker (wired) is just simply amazing.
I'm on my 2nd one (Pro Version Now) The first one i had (not Pro without the Magnometer), i broke the usb socket off by being stupid.

I had come to rely on it so much that i had to stop playing ED until i had the cash to get myself a new one, Brumster and Co have really done an amazing job with this.

I cant comment on the wireless one as i have not used it but if the quality of the Pro version is anything to go by it will be brilliant.

Important to mention, that it only gives you up down left right (and lean if you use opentrack, i think)
So you cant walk about your ship, dont bother me much.

Really once you have used it you wont be able to play without it, its that good.

Ive also used it in other games, Arma/DayZ and World of warplanes works flawlessly, as it emulates a joystick you should be able to use it in any game that supports joysticks.

NeilF · Aug 31, 2016

Dizzy B High said:
Ive also used it in other games, Arma/DayZ and World of warplanes works flawlessly, as it emulates a joystick you should be able to use it in any game that supports joysticks.

Don't forget it can be used in any TrackIR supporting software too using Opentrack. Infact, I use it through Opentrack for ED too as I think it gives a better result.

wstephenson · Sep 1, 2016

Dizzy B High said:
Important to mention, that it only gives you up down left right (and lean if you use opentrack, i think)
So you cant walk about your ship, dont bother me much.

If you use it with OpenTrack you get a roll axis (in addition to pitch and yaw). If you then also mix in a bit of displacement output to the rotational inputs, you can simulate head lateral and fore/back motion at the extremes of rotation.

Dizzy B High · Sep 2, 2016

wstephenson said:
If you use it with OpenTrack you get a roll axis (in addition to pitch and yaw). If you then also mix in a bit of displacement output to the rotational inputs, you can simulate head lateral and fore/back motion at the extremes of rotation.

Ahh really i did play with open track, with my non pro version of EDTracker (before i broke it), with the ED Pro i dont use open track ata all as it seems to work fine out of the box.
Any chance you could post a link to your opentrack profile so i can have a look at how you have it set up?

wstephenson · Sep 2, 2016

Sure, will do when I'm at home later. The details of the response curves depend a lot on screen size and distance though, so you will probably have to adapt them.

Martin Schou · Sep 2, 2016

Impatiently waiting for the Pro version to become available again.

brumster · Sep 2, 2016

Wired ones were back in stock last night

Globusdiablo · Sep 2, 2016

Kicks said:
...Love and Kisses,

CMDR KIcks

You silly boy... *blush*

On a more serious note, I've been waiting on their wireless solution. Do you know when it goes retail?

Red Anders · Sep 2, 2016

the100thmonkey said:
I may, or may not, look a bit like this.

Alice band and a scrunchy? Classy.

Martin Schou · Sep 2, 2016

brumster said:
Wired ones were back in stock last night

Awesome. Just fired off my order

Psychomorph · Oct 15, 2016

I have the ED Tracker Pro and it works well, but what gives me headache (literally actually) is the constant sway. I put smoothing to max (99), but there's still constant sway. Setting up deadzone or using exponential respond mode is an improvement, but only if you look forward (which is not what I bought the device for), because if you look around the sway is back in the game.

Is there a way to bump up the smoothing, or any other option I can try?

Psychomorph · Oct 19, 2016

Guys, anyone has ideas what can be tried to improve things a little? The device tracks my heart beat...

Full smoothness makes it sway and low smoothness makes it rather jitter. Making the turn slower improves things, but it becomes unusable for actually looking around.

wstephenson · Oct 19, 2016

Have you tried using it via OpenTrack? That has different noise filters that may be more effective at masking your heartbeat (and it allows 3 axis tracking).

Psychomorph · Oct 19, 2016

wstephenson said:
Have you tried using it via OpenTrack? That has different noise filters that may be more effective at masking your heartbeat (and it allows 3 axis tracking).

Open track works very well and solves two issues I had, the sway/jitter and allows for view roll/tilt. Thanks a lot!

Is there a way to change sensitivity in OT? I tried the filter settings, but it doesn't seem to do anything. So I set the sensitivity in ED tracker UI, but would be nice to do all in OT.

Psychomorph · Oct 19, 2016

Is there a way to use different ED tracker orientations? I'd like it to be on the back of the head with the cable to the right. I tried to swap the axis and mapping, but it's all messed up.

wstephenson · Oct 20, 2016

Psychomorph said:
Is there a way to change sensitivity in OT? I tried the filter settings, but it doesn't seem to do anything. So I set the sensitivity in ED tracker UI, but would be nice to do all in OT.

The Accela filter settings always worked for me, but they are more subtle in their effects than the EDTracker (as its sensitivity setting governs the input to OT). Contact the OT author (sthalik) via Github if you are having problems, he's a helpful and responsive developer.

Psychomorph said:
Is there a way to use different ED tracker orientations? I'd like it to be on the back of the head with the cable to the right. I tried to swap the axis and mapping, but it's all messed up.

I think you're limited to the orientations presented in the EDTracker UI. You could try asking Brumster on the "DIY Head Tracker for a tenner" thread as this one is really about the prototype.