The Delanclip Fusion is a head tracking solution for PC games, allowing you to transfer head motions to movements in games – useful for looking around in games such as Digital Combat Simulator, driving and flight simulators, and games such as Elite Dangerous. It allows you to transfer the slight movements of your head into the game, meaning you can quickly glance around, something which is very useful in 3D simulators.
I’ll be reviewing the Delanclip Fusion wireless complete set – that’s the set which comes with the camera, the clip, as well as a few accessories. I ordered this package as I didn’t have a spare webcam around, however you can modify an existing camera in order to make it work with the Delanclip. You can see a list of compatible cameras, as well as a guide on setting them up, on the Delanclip website. This being said, it’s paying the extra in my opinion to avoid the hassle and risk of your camera not working.
The Delanclip Fusion set comes with a numerous amount of items – the clip itself, the camera, as well as a mount so you can place it at the top of your monitor. A charging cable is included with the package if you opt for the wireless option, and it’s quite nice quality – braided and with the magnetic swappable tops. Velcro patches are also included to attach the clip to the headset.
Included in the package is a modified PS3 camera, made to worth with the clip and tested by them. I’m not 100% sure on the specifics, but it appears to have various filters that pick up the output of the clip. The mount included in the package makes it easy to mount, move and adjust pitch on the top of the monitor.
The clip itself is 3D printed, and is very light – I did not feel any imbalance when I placed it on my headphones, and you can use the included velcro patches to quickly attach and unattach it on your headphones. Battery life is around 8 hours, and it takes around 4 hours to charge. The enclosure itself is 3D printed, and is fairly sturdy and of decent quality.
Setup took me around 5 minutes from unboxing, setting up the camera software and downloading Opentrack. After fiddling with the sensitivity settings in Opentrack, I was in DCS and playing. Delanclip offer an excellent guide on their website to set up the product, making it really easy to do.
The only issue I faced initially was that the clip was mixing up points due to the position on my headset – it has three led spotlights, and if these get too close to each other, it can mean that the tracking software mixes them up making your camera go crazy. I solved this by adjusting the pitch of the Delanclip on my headset, as well as moving it forward so that when I looked to the left my head didn’t block it from the camera.
An annoyance I had was the mounting of the Delanclip. I found that it was a bit of a pain to mount, as I had to angle it for the position of my headset, as well as making sure the ‘prongs’ were far forward enough so that when I turned my head to look behind me the camera could still see them. I do wish that the Fusion had a way to position it further out from your head, or just a better way to mount it in general.
This being said, after getting it positioned correctly with the velcro camera, I found the experience very good. It was easy to keep track of another aircraft in a dogfight for example, and it was far better than attempting to use the mouse to look around whilst using a throttle and joystick. I was able to simply move my head to keep track of an aircraft at high speeds, which gave me quite an advantage. In games such as Euro Truck Simulator, I also found it great for quickly looking around at junctions and the like. I wasn’t a fan of using head tracking in Assetto Corsa or Competizione – I feel like it threw me off and I find the radar feature in both games aids more than enough for situational awareness. This being said, I primarily bought the Delanclip to use in DCS, and the experience was great there.
To conclude, I really like the Delanclip. It’s a fairly affordable way to get head tracking, and came quickly after ordering. My only gripe is the mounting method – I wish there was a better way to mount it to the headset that spaced it further from your head. Other than that, I found it easy to set up and use in multiple games in different genres.
The wireless set that I ordered costs around £104 at time of writing – you can view it here.