Hey everyone, I’ve released a Feature Preview build of Refloat 1.1, currently mainly containing an experimental Haptic Feedback implementation. The goal of Feature Previews is to allow anyone who’s interested to test and provide feedback on new features. The Feature Preview build contains more configuration options than what will likely make it to the final release (we try to keep a balance between customizability and config option bloat). Based on the feedback we’ll keep what’s important and try to trim config options that aren’t needed.
Keep in mind this is experimental software. Only install it at your own risk and if you’re willing to mess with the settings.
Please provide feedback in this thread. Any feedback on what configuration values for Haptic Feedback work for you and/or you like is very welcome. More details on what feedback we’re looking for is in the release notes.
Just providing some insight to help others start with configuring, the biggest game changer for me has been the “Duty Filter Alpha” parameter under the Duty Pushback settings.
The lower this is, the more Duty is filtered and smoothed out when it comes to the pushback and haptic response. This means it’s less likely to trigger so easily from quick spikes like shoving the nose down, off road, bonks, wheel slip, etc, and more accurately represents the duty cycle you’re cruising at. At the expense of a slightly delayed response.
Setting this to 0.01 has been the perfect sweetspot for me, not triggering too easily from quick spikes and being obtrusive, but isn’t too delayed to affect reliability in my experience. Ive mostly tested with a 63V, need to test more on higher voltage builds and on trails. If using this, it may be worth turning down the DC pushback threshold like 5% lower than you typically run, since you’re used to it being easier to trigger. I use around 75-80% personally (Solid Tone ~85%)
As for the Haptic Settings, I kept the frequencies defaults, and lowered the Tone Length to 100ms to mimic the rate of FM’s haptic buzz. On my 63V Hypercore, I have the Tone Strength for DC set to 2V, and Vibration Strength set to 4V.
I would definitely recommend raising these a bit for higher power boards, as wind noise at higher speeds will make it much less noticeable. For Jeff’s 84V Hypercore, at 75% DC, he has his DC Tone Strength at 3V (still hard to hear, but he cares more about the vibration and felt the nose wandered a bit more at higher tone strengths), and Vibration Strength at 5.6V.
Thanks the clarification. I think it would be great if Floaty were able to be backwards compatible with older versions instead of just not working at all.
It is backwards compatible with older versions, but theres no great way to make it easily compatible with unreleased builds where the configurations are always changing.
Hello everyone. Pint XV owner and first post here.
I’m using Float at the moment as I like having haptic feedback especially when my 11 yr old is riding the board.
I’d like to switch to Refloat, but have haptic feedback too. Any news yet on when 1.1 will release?
Well, 1.1 will be released when there’s a significant feature worth the release. I thought it’ll be Haptic Feedback and ATR Smoothing for 1.1, but I’m struggling to get both of them to a finished state.
For Haptic Feedback the issues are:
It was found playing the haptic tones can cause abs overcurrent faults under certain circumstances, making it inherently unsafe. We need to somehow work around this issue…
The particular way the Haptic Feedback will work and be configured needs to be defined in a way that it’s ergonomic, consistent and customizable enough. I’m talking about frequencies, tone patterns, vibrating vs. audible and how much configurability there is for duty, current (if we even have this one) and error feedbacks.
The feedback you can see in this thread is the whole feedback in its entirety I’ve gotten so far. I’ve personally never ridden with haptic feedback, I’m not even sure I want it and I am not fond of audible feedback in particular. Hence, I feel I’m really not suited well enough to define the details on my own. I know a lot of people already use it in various ways and I’d like to know how.
So, if you want to help make Haptic Feedback happen sooner, please post answers to the following questions (as well as any other information you think may be helpful):
Which Float 2.0 Haptic Buzz pattern do you use and find to be the best?
Do you prefer audible or vibrating (or both) feedback and why?
If you only could have one, which would it be?
Would you prefer alternating the tones or them being played together (Float is alternating two frequencies for all its patterns, Refloat 1.1-preview1 plays audible and vibrating at the same time).
If you tested this Feature Preview (or, even, perhaps, you’ve got it on your board for weeks and just forgot to post here ):
The config you settled with
In particular which frequencies work for you and which don’t
I know some frequencies interfere with the IMU, I think it’s fixable and have some ideas, but that’ll take even longer.
I’m planning on doing another feature preview release with some changes and improvements to Haptic Feedback and also a preview of the ATR Smoothing. If all goes well it’ll be in a few days, but may also take longer.
I use primarily the tactile buzz patterns 2 and 3. It is very important to be able to set the strength in amps in my experience.
Vibrating. The goal is to make the board feel like you’re going over a rumble strip like you would drive over on the edges of a highway.
Definitely Vibrating. The stronger the vibration and lower the frequency, the more distinguishable it feels from regular trail / road vibration. Less of a bzzz and more of a BM BM BM BM underfoot, if that makes any sense.
Not sure. Tactile and audible together would be alright, as long as the audible version is something I can turn off.
):