Review YAW VR Standart edition

Hi, I'm Dani from Spain. Since this august I'm the proud owner of one of the first units of YAW VR and AFAIK the first to post here a review about it.

TDRL: Performance and gameplay impresions at the end.


I backed YAW 2 years ago with a cost of 800€ more or less. The unit I received is the standart edition one, there are a PRO version that is still being manufactured.

HARDWARE:

Yaw arrived in a big wood box.

Yaw VR consists in a triangular main base, an hemispherical upper shell and a central pole with IMU unit inside. It feels robust and have a grat finish better than the one on the YAW website pics, my unit is black and when I had it in front of me it didnt have the apearence of a cheap toy that I have seen on the pictures.

-The main base:

Its made of metal and has a soft plastic cover lighted with leds.

Inside you find 3 pairs of motorized omnidirectional wheels and 3 swivel wheels to help with the rotation.
In the front part you can find Yaw VR logo that gets lit when ythe unit is on.

In the back part you find a control panel with the power plug, an ethernet port, a 3,5 jack to atach an emergency stop system (it comes without one) and a key that block the motors.

Inside there is the mainboard. I havent seen it but I know that it has ethernet card with wifi and bluetooth

-The upper shell:

I'ts an hemisphere of plastic.
Inside its padded on the walls and the bottom is cushioned.
The central part of the cushion its detachable works as backrest for standart edition.
In the front and back of inner cushion are two metallic atachment points:the front
one is for the footrest poles, the back one is for the optional full backrest that comes with pro edition.


The standart unit comes with a one point seatbelt with an airplane stile system, the pro version will come with a 4 point harnes so you can make the device react faster and go further in the rotations.

The outer part of hemisphere its surrounded by 2 metal rings that have a cushion betwen them. those rings are screwed one to each other with m4 bolts and work as mounting points for accesory mounts and handles

-The footrest pole:

It has its own atachment in the frontal part of the device with a dedicated mount plate in the metallic circle and an atachment point inside the device, so it is atached in two diferent locations with tree inserts in total.
Inside the pole is located the IMU that sends positional information to the device. It has a batteri that is charged from a micro USB port on the right side and has its own on/off switch.


-Accesories:

My unit its the Standart Edition and it comes with a side mounting plate, two handles and a footrest. It lacks the central console and another side mount that the manufacturer told will send to me.

The mounting plates are made of metal and had premade M4 screw holes.

The footrest its just that, a footrest, it is designed in a way that any of my pedals wont fit. It's metallic and has the yaw logo cut on it.

Its screwed to a triangular piece that itself its screwed to a mounting plate.
The interesting part is that all the angles on the triangle are diferent and have premade holes so you can choose the final angle of the footrest or pedal plate.


(As I wanted to use my pedals and HOTAS system I opted to made my own mounts of MDF board)

SOFTWARE:

Yaw didnt have its own software for PC (yet?) so simtools its mandatory. You will need an IOS or Android smartphone to install a custom app. YAW app lets you calibrate the central position of the device, put boundaries on its diferent axis and setup the motor strengh.
I weight 80 Kg more or less and I use YAW VR with 50% motor strengh.
The app have to be conected to the same wifi network that the simtools computer and connects to IMU unit via bluetooth.


PERFORMANCE:

I had yaw for more than a month so I can give you some impresions:

The setup its quite simple:
Plug evething, install the app (I use the android version), setup your wifi and complete the interface settings in SimTools GameEngine.
The only dificult is that the device (my unit at least) comes with no instructions. I was in a YAW VR discord channel ,the manufacturer is there too, and the same day I received my unit he kindly guided me in the configuration process.

As a side note I cannot make the device work with LFS and demo version of simtools. It worked at first try with DCS and simtools comercial version.

The device has a wide range of rotation:

YAW Endless
ROLL 70º
PITCH 70º (split in two 35º configurable separatedly)

The device reacts enough fast and strong to my needs, I cannot compare to other motion sims as I never tried another one (besides some old arcade machines and it performs better IMO).

I use it daily with Elite Dangerous. There is any perceived delay betwen action and reaction, its almost instantaneous. With DCS and XPLANE plugins there is a bit more of delay (but I think its related to my CPU getting old)
In really fast movements in oposite directions it skids in yaw axis, but it only happened to me testing not during gamplay.

CONFORT:

The device its quite confortable except for the backrest of the standart edition. Its to short and too hard, it was designed this way so you can unmount the device and put the upper shell over the base with the spherical shape upwards when not using the unit.
The problem is it makes gameplay sessions of more than30 minutes painfull in a literal way. I'm waiting for the PRO edition upgrade kit mainly for the backrest. Now I'm putting a sofa cushion in my back and I can play for hours so its not a big worry, but i have boundaries set to 15% in simtools axis till I get my backrest and the 4 pint harness.

As I said I made my own mounting plates and pedal holder, the ones that comes with the device didnt work for my setup. They give you options when you purchase your unit, mine as one of the first ones was sent with what they have in the moment because people started to get nervous about its pledge. It was not a worry for me and I'm happy to be one of the first to receive its unit.

DCS VIDEO
E VIDEO

Great report Dani!
Cannot wait to welcome my one. Hope I will get it this month.

Thank you dani for this review ... waiting also my own YawVR

Nice review.
Do you know which kind of motors are used in the unit?

Sorry, there is no documentation with my unit, I asked the manufacturer.
Will tell ASAP I get a repply

Ok Zsolt the CEO of Yaw VR answered me.
Custom servomotors of 100W for standart Edition and 120W version for pro edition.

Image from one of the kickstarter updates a while back.

GG Dani

Hey guys. Has anyone tried racing games with yaw vr? Also @Dani did you make your own axis assignments or did you use whatever was in simtools? Thank you

I tried it already but I will again. I have to find a way to play these games

Hi, I didnt try any race game yet but i plan to do. For space/flight simulators I had tried DCS, Elite Dangerous, Xplane 11 and Il 2.
DCS:I use experimental plugin of DCS without YAW axis and no filters with satisfactory results, I followed @KydDynoMyte advice setting it up
Elite Dangerous: xml pluggin with values I posted in my elite video. Didnt mess with tunning center for that game and experience is the best, a bit of yaw axis to sway
X-Plane: Still tweaking it works but I dont like the feeling again no yaw axis set only pitch and roll
Il2: same settings than Xplane, pitch and roll, playable but not perfect, need more tweaking

Simtools has a lot of layers of configuration and I'm strugling to fully understand it. For yaw @KydDynoMyte had a lot of knowledge and full of advice posted in Yaw discord channel

Once you correctly set the simtools axis limiting, all the other percentages make sense. Less than 10% is just so much lower than most sims, you don't get to it with trial and error easily if you don't understand how it works. It would help in setup for all sims if axis testing let you tick 1% at a time with a mouse click or arrow key instead of trying to be accurate with the slider using the mouse. I should request that feature.

Hey there,
Thank for the info. What headset are you using and do you have trouble with motion cancelation?
I am curious about it for WMR reverb pro.

Thanks.

Hi! I have original vive and hp reverb.
I will seap the reverb in favor of pimax just becaus motion cancellation. With yaw axis disabled hp reverb looks amazing and works pretty well most part of the time. With yaw axis enabled, even with a bit of it (to use use it as sway ie) its unplayable. If you are ok with not using yaw at all reverb its a great simulator hmd, if you esnt to use use it even a little bit lighthouse tracking its a must IMHO. I cannot talk about oculus ad I dont have an oculus device since dk2 times...
Hope this helps you.

Thanks for the review on the Yaw VR. I just got mine last weekend and have it assembled. I’m new to simulators so am trying to figure out how to get the yaw to work with simtools.

so any updates on the yawvr? mine should be here tomorrow. I did get the pro version and have hotas and wheel to use with it. I really wanted to play forza horizon in vr with it but they dont really support vr for that game. Also if anyone knows a games similar to horizon with vr support please feel free to let me know. what I really like about the yawvr is that it is so portable. I will be able to pack it away before the wife even knows its there lmao

nice write up, I am considering the pro version, just pre-ordered a Reverb G2 after selling my vive.
Why doesn`t the reverb cope with yaw movement ? isnt it the same as if you moved your head to right or left ?

I would guess because the Reverb uses inside out tracking, which means it uses the cameras on the headset to determine orientation and position. These cameras face downwards, and are expecting to be looking at the floor. So while you're sitting on the yawvr, all the camera sees is the yawvr base itself. When it turns, they can't detect movement.

Either that or he has his cameras covered, meaning he is only using rotational tracking of the headset, not movement tracking. The headset then can not distinguish between the head or the platform rotating i guess.