Beam Eye Tracker: Is Budget Best?

[@g-locmedia]

If anyone else has any suggestions for good alternatives please comment: I'll put a full list of them on the website.

[@aapje]

I use the SmoothTrack app and am quite happy with it.

[@DeathMetalinfedel]

Opentrack is free and you can use it as a stand alone with your camera. No other software needed. Beam was impossible to get working well and thankfully I found out about the neuralnet portion. Open track setup Input neuralnet tracker Output freetreack 2.0 enhanced filter Accela

[@ArcanePath360]

There is paid for tracking on Google Play which is £12 and works with a phone. Not my phone sadly. You need an Android with AR certification. So I'm considering just upgrading my old phone and paying for the software rather than spend crazy money on Track IR which is over £200 now in the UK. Simmers get really shafted on the price of stuff like this

[@LucifahZ800]

Thanks for this video! As a result I grabbed a cheap 60fps camera from Amazon and tried the demo of Beam Eye Tracker with it. Honestly, I'm blown away! Immediately got the full version 🙂 I never liked TrackIR because I had to wear headphones all the time for the clip. That I didn't strangle myself with the cables was a miracle! Then I wasted a whole lot more money on Tobii, which I never got to work in a way that doesn't induce nausea (I think it's because it can only do 30fps, which is not a lot in this day and age, considering the price!). So Beam is really the best out of the three for me, by far. Took a while to find the right mappings in Opentrack, but it's working perfectly now

[@g-locmedia]

@@LucifahZ800 tobi actually refreshes at 120hz I think.

[@dirkg1747]

Very good video. I will give it a try and gone buy it to fly on DCS. Thanks for the info.

[@g-locmedia]

@@dirkg1747 glad you found it helpful

[@BloodSteyn]

I've been using Beam for a while now, and it's pretty damn good. I bought it from the website, but it's since become available in Steam, with regional pricing, so almost half price where I live. Getting things like TrackIR or Tobii here is not easy, most of them are 2nd hand imports, if you're lucky. So Beam, plus a cheap Hikvision webcam... prefect budget system for me.

[@CessSim]

great video mate. Thanks for sharing and very informative.

[@g-locmedia]

Thanks mate. Sorry I missed the community flight. I'm stacked up with a bit of work at the moment.

[@CessSim]

@@g-locmedia All good mate. Understood.

[@GiovanniEsposito5]

I have used Beam with the cheap logitech c270 too, and for me latency and accuracy were less than good. It's ok if you never have tried it and want to see you like face/eye tracking at all, but if you do, for me it's necessary to invest more in a better performing combo. I am using mostly VR but will try other solutions for larger rig with monitors...

[@g-locmedia]

Thanks for sharing. I was quite impressed by what the little $20 web cam could do. What setting do you run the smoothness at?

[@GiovanniEsposito5]

@@g-locmedia I have tried a lot of settings with smoothness and many other things, still the delay was noticeable and tracking wasn't reliable enough for me. If you say tha it's much better with a brio or any other 60fps camera, I may give it another go...

[@g-locmedia]

@@GiovanniEsposito5 it's not a crazy difference. Only enough to notice it if you're looking for it

[@GiovanniEsposito5]

@@g-locmedia I have re-tried it with the new Elgato facecam mk2, at 60 fps@1080p and even 120fps@720p. It's sure a bit better than before (old logitech c270), but for me it's still not really good enough. For now it's neither as precise or as fast as it needs to be, imo. Expecially the latency when flying fast, combat manouvers, etc... I will see if adjusting smoothness and other parameters will make a difference, but for now I am considering trying the trackir to see if the latency is minimized with active ir tracking.

[@ShimonMaruani]

Thanks for the video. I have been using beam for almost 6 months. 120 hz, NOT using eye tracking option. I needed a lot of tweaking to make it good to my needs - choppers at DCS. Well it does the job. BUT it not for someone that try to use DCS for it's full potential. I have to use the smoothness filter FULLY (at Opentrack + above 50 at beam sw) to get a stable image I can work with. when you have to manipulate buttons, MFD's it is so shacky that you just need to freeze the picture to do what you need to do (I have a button set to toggle). and I am loosing my center a lot (another button to bind for center). So - it is good for the very beginer that just getting into the Headtracking thing. I am now looking for Track IR / Grassmonkey / Delanclip products for my next thing. VR is also an option....

[@g-locmedia]

@@ShimonMaruani thanks for sharing your experience with it and for going in depth with it. Fantastic!

[@cmdrbigity6914]

Don’t have these issues. Check your filter settings

[@g-locmedia]

@@cmdrbigity6914 Are you referring to the latency?

[@cmdrbigity6914]

@@g-locmedia Latency, losing center, jittering. Using 40 on the beam pitch/yaw ranges and 85 on the filtering. Camera is set to 1280x720 @ 120 In opentrack I've set the accela filter with rotation smoothing maxed and deadzone at .1. Position filtering is 1.3 and deadzone is .25. It's not a cheap camera though, so results may vary.

[@FlamingCurtain]

I saw a razer kiyo for sale, it can do 60fps would this be a good fit for beam eye tracker?

[@g-locmedia]

I think this would work just fine

[@FlamingCurtain]

@@g-locmediaso I did some research and apparently the kiyo can’t be switched to 60fps for head tracking, only via obs but will default back to 30 when closing. I am eyeing the Logitech C922 now

[@Empire24453]

Been on my wish list for a very long time knowing That or no, They had so many updates and performances since then. I do not run the sim in full screen so will it still work? Also as streaming you need two cams? One for beam the other for OBS?

[@NabeelGames]

I have eye beam tracker in open track and Microsoft flight simulator with natural movement in the third box. I get jittery footage and also a lot of fuzziness around the mfd and texts look very fuzzy too. Any tips? Thank you

[@g-locmedia]

@@NabeelGames have you tried playing with smoothness, also what frame rate are you at what what's the refresh rate of your monitor

[@NabeelGames]

@@g-locmediamy monitor is 160hz and my camera is set to 1920-1080 30fps. I don’t know where smoothness settings are.

[@rymdskrotet]

Can someone please help me find USB camera that can be use for head tracking? I know there are some sheep once that actually or made for Raspberry Pi. I guess they need night vision and IR. Can you please recommend any for me with Link.

[@g-locmedia]

Is it for this device? There a link in the video description which shows all compatible web cams

[@Cleric-Heretic]

Thanks!

[@dolomit7517]

what is it called eye tracker if it only tracks the head?

[@g-locmedia]

It can also track your eyes

[@andy70d35]

Could you please give us the model of brio webcam, there are many models, under the brio name.

[@g-locmedia]

@@andy70d35 the link should be in the description. Unless I forgot to put it there. I'll check now

[@THESHADOW97139]

Hi What is the definition of the screen you used??

[@g-locmedia]

43 inch 4k. Is that what you mean?

[@THESHADOW97139]

@@g-locmedia yes !!! 👍

[@g-locmedia]

Yea is an LG multimedia display. Not my usual flight setup as I get a lot of screen tearing with it. You may have noticed that in the video.

[@muhammadmaster7040]

Can you do a comparison video for 2024 comparing the best hotas setups between Vkb Virpil Winwing Moza And any other you may think of

[@g-locmedia]

I'd love to do that but unfortunately I don't have them all here. If I can source them in the next few months I'll certainly do that though.

[@Izmael1310]

The beam eye tracker can be also bought on steam. Are there any issues to run it from steam as well to run for example MSFS steam edition? I dont know if I should buy it directly or through steam. Only difference I see is the price distribution where steam cut is 30% while direct purchase would go 100% to the beam eye tracker team. Btw I've said it many times. In my opinion track ir is old and outdated and also expensive, tobii eyetracker the eye tracking is unusable and basically you wont use their main selling point which adds at least 50 % of the cost, thus making it also very expensive for what it does. I think for GA or airliners in MSFS / XP the beam eye tracker is really the best solution, not budget solution, but the best solution. Maybe there are even less expensive tracking softwares which also use the free open track. Btw there is also a video on youtube where the tobii eye tracker has to be used with the open track as well to get the most of it.

[@cmdrbigity6914]

Either is fine. If you prefer to exit steam to save some performance, get the standalone version.

[@g-locmedia]

Great advice

[@cmdrbigity6914]

Love beam with my facecam mk2. Ditched my grass monkey for it

[@chriswilson9251]

FaceTrackNoIR 3.50 Euro?

[@g-locmedia]

Interesting. Is that what you use?

[@chriswilson9251]

@@g-locmedia I played with it, but now im totally vr... Just showing you an even cheaper alternative... Maybe a future review from you?

[@g-locmedia]

Thanks for highlighting. I never even knew that existed.

[@WatchMysh]

​​​@@g-locmediayou can even make Tobii work with IL2 with it. The Interface has some problems with high ppi screens though.

[@chriswilson9251]

Every Month Beam has about %20 off for a week

[@g-locmedia]

Good for people to know. Maybe the discounts can be stacked. I'll reach out to them and find out.

[@AdiSRO]

Aitrack+opentrack is free...doing the exact same thing.

[@g-locmedia]

Do you use aitrack?

[@AdiSRO]

@@g-locmedia yep, you just need a cheap webcam and good light in the room.

[@saus660]

@@g-locmediaI do, it works great.

[@pilotpawanc]

I tried them but it was a disaster

[@g-locmedia]

@@pilotpawanc what web cam combo did you try?

[@DESHolden]

Didn't watch your video due to a 2 minute add upfront, F*** that!

[@g-locmedia]

Really. That's a bit extreme. What was the add if you don't mind me asking?

[@DESHolden]

@@g-locmedia It's not you, it's me. I'm fed up with extended ads. The subject ad that I rage quite for was a self proclaiming financial wealth building guru. As for your content, I watched the review - thumbs up.

[@g-locmedia]

@@DESHolden yea they are starting to really squeeze them in. Yesterday I watched 3 full unskippabke ads on a midroll.

[@Simongtt]

I've had YT premium for a while, it's fucking expensive it's brilliant to have no ads at all.

[@g-locmedia]

@@Simongtt I did the same and agree. Thinking about going back to it.

[@truter5243]

Great. My country is saturated with cheap, overpriced junk webcams. None allows more than 30Hz. The one that does, the Logitech BRIO Ultra HD Pro, is priced in such a way that it would be cheaper to import a trackIR unit 😠 😡