The Feelbelt sends haptic feedback directly to your body, but does it a have a place in esports racing?
Photo credit: Feelbelt
Have you ever felt like your sim racing setup is a little lacking, that you don’t feel every bump in the road as you drive? Well perhaps the Feelbelt might be able to help you with that. It’s a belt that you wear around your lower torso, and it is capable of delivering a sort of force feedback directly to your body! Is this the way to find that elusive ‘seat of the pants’ feel? Take a look at the video below to find out!
Immersion, Immersion, Immersion
The Feelbelt is designed to enhance gaming, music and film experiences by providing vibrations around the user’s back and stomach area which emulate the music or other audio output of the chosen medium.
What this means is that when a sound is loud, the vibrations will be more intense, and the feel of the vibrations will change according to the nature of the sound. It’s also directional, so if a sound comes from the user’s right in game, for instance, they will feel the feedback on their right hand side.
This is all well and good, but what we wanted to know is whether or not this can provide useful or immersive force feedback when you’re in your sim rig. Given that no racing games have been designed with the Feelbelt in mind, there is no physics-based information which is being sent to the belt. Instead, all it can do is react to in-game noises and sounds to convey information.
While this won’t necessarily help your performance levels on track, it may make you feel that little bit more at one with your virtual car. If you want to know more about the Feelbelt, including our overall review of the product, give our video a watch now!
Do you think the Feebelt can be useful for simracing? Tell us on Twitter at @OverTake_gg or in the comments down below!
