Simucube is getting an official support for wireless steering wheels! SC dev team has been silently working on significant Simucube user experience improvements, and first one to be unveiled is the wireless wheel system.
In a nutshell, a wireless transmitter inside the wheel will deliver low latency signals of paddle shifters, buttons and encoder knobs to the receiver on Simucube. The system supports rapid hot-swapping of different kinds of wheels.
All it takes is the wheel that supports the wireless system, and a receiver module in Simucube. All existing Simucubes are upgradeable to the wireless mode simply by plugging-in a tiny and low cost receiver module.
The wireless system is in final stages of development and more details will follow with official product release.
Wireless support may be added to all existing Simucube’s by plugging in a wireless receiver on the SC board (receiver sold separately)
Transmitter will be inside the steering wheel button plate. In 2019 there will be wheels in the market that have SC wireless transmitter out-of-the-box.
Special attention has been paid to transmitter energy consumption to maximize the battery life. Single battery will last over 3 years on daily hard-core use. For more casual use with long shelf life battery, 10+ years can be expected.
To maximize battery life, there’s no LED’s or displays on the wheel side. As many use VR headset anyways, we thought it may be better this way.
The transmitter system is openly available to all wheel manufacturers. Based on number of Simucube’s out there, we expect there to be several vendors supporting it. Some of them are already working on their wireless wheels.
We are also thinking if we can make it meaningfully available for DIY conversions as well.
I add my full vocal support also for DIY boards, I have many wheels that need these. I just need the boards, and SW application, I will take care the rest myself
I don’t get why DIY isn’t a high priority instead of what sounds like an afterthought. There are thousands of wheels out there that are waiting for stuff like this. Also it’s an OPEN Sim Wheel from the start right?
The statistics that we can see, suggests that DIY is actually small proportion of the end users, (hence the after thought) as so many buy the fully built (almost) turn key system. For sure there are thousands of wheels made by several companies, but I would also estimate that only a fraction of those users that own those have the know-how (or time?) to update those as the button plates may need to be machined and/or otherwise worked on so that they are compatible for wireless data transfer.
Understood. I’m sure you’ll think of something great. Else I’ll have to order a new buttonplate, because this is definitely functionality that everyone’s been waiting for. Great job!
Those statistics are probably off because of what osw is. I could have built this myself but wanted something that worked out of the box because my time is limited. Id rather spend it racing then building it. Now my wheels I had no choice but to rip them apart to convert them to a usb cable. Same goes for the simlab P1 that is coming ill put it together. Im sure this is the case for many osw users. Not saying the stats are wrong but you may want to rethink how accurate they are. Us OSW users are a handy bunch.
The other major problem is some of these wheels are expensive for what we do there is no way I want to just abandon them. Besides the guys that have built some really nice limited run wheels. I was actually thinking about buying that F1 wheel from Augrey but now im going to wait to see how this works. Im not spending 600 dollars on a wheel I cant use next month.
I support the idea of DIY option in the spirit of OSW. The only concern is the relative difficulty wiring it inside the tightly built button plate. But I’m sure many people still can manage that, so why not give then at least a try!
Compared to other popular DIY modules, the module was developed to be installed onto a larger button plate / box pcb where the buttons and encoders are connected to. This means that
There is only one ground pin and one power pin. This should be solvable by a DIY guy easily, but might require soldering skills to connect all ground (or power) wires from buttons at some point other than our module first.
There is no way to configure pins via USB application - it requires a separate not-as-cheap programming device manufactured by us to configure pins. This we should be able to solve somehow for the possible DIY version of the module so that it would be suitable without separate configuration for 90% of the users.
The button box must have access hole for the user to change the battery. I guess not a problem for DIY guy to take thing apart once every two-to-three years or so?
The button box must have a radio transparent window somewhere. DIY = Dremel?
This being said, we have recognized the feedback, and are still evaluating different ways to make this available for DIY in meaningful way.
The introduction of wireless wheel support, DIY or otherwise, does not make current wheels obsolete or unuseable. They will continue to function perfectly well with a coiled lead, just as they do in real life in GT3, WRC, WTCR etc, etc.
