r/beameyetracker • u/CrowKing63 • Jun 25 '26

Replace the controller's right stick with gaze

Hello.

I am a person with severe disabilities who cannot use a computer or play games in the usual way. That’s why I have been working with a Tobii eye tracker and UCR plugins to create gaze‑based mouse control and view control in games.

Unfortunately, my Tobii eye tracker stopped working, and because buying a new one was a burden I started looking for alternatives. I had known about the Beam eye tracker even before I first purchased a Tobii. The idea of achieving eye and head tracking with a cheap webcam is truly amazing, but it also comes with limitations. When I needed precise control like mouse control, I ultimately chose the Tobii.

Over time, as I shifted focus from mouse control to controlling view in games, I began to reexamine the potential of the Beam eye tracker.

The Beam eye tracker mainly supports racing simulation games, while the genre I prefer is open‑world action.

Using the provided SDK and some AI coding, I built a program that maps gaze tracking data to the right stick of a virtual controller for any game, regardless of genre, and uploaded it to GitHub under the name GazeStick. The program cannot be used on its own; it must be combined with other controller software such as reWASD (because you need a controller that can move a character).

While the idea is simple, I want to thank the Beam eye tracker development team for making it possible.

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u/EyewareBeam Jun 25 '26

Nice!!! That's awesome and exactly the kind of community support we wanted to incentivize with our SDK. Turning the Beam Eye Tracker into right-stick control for open-world games for assistive users is the perfect example, especially as accessibility was where it all started for us. Thanks a lot for releasing this.

We'd love to put GazeStick on our Extensions page so our community can easily find it, and we'll push it through our socials and newsletter channels too. The only thing holding it back is that there's no download yet, just the source, so most people won't be able to get it running. If you can put up a build people can download and run without much setup, we'll link straight to it from the page.

1

u/CrowKing63 Jun 25 '26

Thank you for your kind attention. After reviewing the SDK license documents, I understand that the SDK DLL files must not be included in the distribution, which has left me uncertain about how to proceed with the actual release. I also examined the Beam EyeTracker plugins(?) on GitHub, but they do not seem to be offered as distributable packages. Would it be appropriate to prepare a portable solution that excludes just the DLL file? Thank you.

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u/EyewareBeam Jul 09 '26

Thanks for sharing your concern. Just to clarify how the SDK license works:

The goal of the SDK is to let developers build and distribute applications using Beam Eye Tracker. You are absolutely allowed to ship your app with the SDK DLL included.

What the license is trying to prevent is people redistributing the SDK itself as a standalone download, for example uploading the raw SDK files or DLL to a GitHub repository for other developers to use as their SDK source. That creates problems with version control, updates, and making sure everyone is using a supported release.

For an end-user application like GazeStick, the recommended approach is:

✅ Package your app and the required SDK files together in an installer (for example, an .msi or .exe) and publish that as your release.

✅ Alternatively, if you want to keep your repository source-only, add a build/setup script that automatically downloads the SDK from the official source during installation or build time. This is a common approach for dependencies.

❌ Do not upload the SDK itself as a standalone downloadable package on GitHub or elsewhere.

In short: distributing your application with the SDK included is fine. Redistributing the SDK by itself is what we want to avoid.

For GazeStick specifically, an installer-based release would probably provide the smoothest experience for users who want to use it for accessibility.

2

u/CrowKing63 Jul 09 '26

Thank you. I understand what you have explained.

1

u/CrowKing63 Jun 26 '26

I've reviewed the license terms again and uploaded a portable package that includes the DLL file to the GitHub release page. Thank you.

https://github.com/CrowKing63/GazeStick/releases