A major headset and accessory brand has jumped into sim racing with the new Turtle Beach VelocityOne Race wheel and pedals featuring direct drive feedback and load cells. And it comes with a detachable button box, as well.
Compatible with PC and Xbox consoles, the package is priced at £629.99. And it’s interesting, as Turtle Beach are providing everything you might need for mid-level sim racing in one easy purchase. So the wheel features a custom K Drive direct drive force feedback motor, although no details have been released regrading torque yet. The price point would suggested somewhere around the 8Nm or more range (given the price of existing competitors), but we’ll have to wait for confirmation.
We also don’t know whether the wheel rim will be detachable. As supplied, you get hand-stitched leather and Mag-Shift gear paddles, plus two analog paddles with magnetic Hall Effect sensors for clutch and handbrake.
The centre boss of the wheel looks a bit plastic, but you do seem to get four rotary dials, and six buttons on the rim, with three more on the wheel base. Which is probably enough, considering you also get the VelocityOne Control Unit button box with a start button and stop button for the force feedback, three rotary dials, four more buttons and four switches.
And it also includes a race management display for telemetry, race management and more in supported games, including Forza, WRC and Assetto Corsa.
The pedal set is also interesting. You get a three pedal set-up as standard, with a dynamic Brake Tek load-cell system, and adjustable accelerator and clutch pedals.
It all seems like a pretty good deal, given that a Fanatec CSL Ready2Race bundle currently costs €499.80 with a two-pedal set-up, and no digital display or button box included. The Moza R9 V2 and CS V2 bundle costs £555.96, but that requires pedals for an extra £193, and still needs a button box for similar functionality. And the Thrustmaster T818 costs £599.99 without a wheel, pedals or button box.
Mounting options are either a clamp or pre-drilled holes and mounting screws for rigs and cockpits. And the back of the wheelbase incluses two USB-C expansion ports alongside the USB connection for your PC or Xbox, and the power socket. It’s supplied with the USB leads and pedals you’ll need. And there’s also a Tuner compansion app for PC, Xbox consoles or smartphones to set remappable profiles.
Assuming the new Turtle Beach VelocityOne Race wheel and pedals offer a decent amount of force feedback, the only stumbling block for sim racers may be if the wheel isn’t detachable. Most of us enjoy the possibility to swap rims to suit different types of virtual driving. But the D-shape wheel will certainly serve for all racing disciplines, and if you mainly stick to the more popular categories like GT3, you’ll potentially save a fair amount of cash.
When it comes to reliability and customer service, obviously Turtle Beach are a well established company, so that shouldn’t be an issue. And the recently released VelocityOne flight system seems to have been fairly well received, so it seems unlikely the race system won’t meet the same or bettern standards.
You can pre-order the new Turtle Beach VelocityOne Race Wheel and Pedals through the offical site from today, with the product going on sale from February 26th, 2024. And take a look at all of the latest sim racing wheels and pedals, here.
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