This wheel has a huge flaw

Nacon sent the Revosim Pure RS bundle to review. As always I say what I want and they have no control or see this before hand. This is their first foraway into simracing equipment and I have to say, good effort. If they only havent messed up on one really important thing that we are going to talk in a bit.

The Pure costs 699 pounds or 799 dollars or euros for this whole bundle that comes with the 9nm wheelbase, a 300mm wheel, a 100kg loadcell pedal set. Separately the wheel base is 459, the wheel 169 and pedals 129 pounds, so you save a bit if you want something ready to go. And this is ready to go. Soon there will be a clutch, a shifter and handbrake. This is a PC only package.

NACON did a lot, and I mean a lot of homework for all of the equipment. The unboxing is pretty painless, even though the box weighs literally 24kg. It comes well packaged, everything is tidy to say the least.  Its also quite tidy to press like and subscribe, and if you are listening to this via spotify leave a follow and a 5star. 

Its by checking the equipment out that you see where they put a lot of work on. Figuring out what works in other equipment and then giving it their own spin on things.

So the wheelbase is a lovechild between a fanatec clubsport dd and a moza r9 or r12. Rather large Aluminum body, plastic front and rear panels. Its the size of clubsport DD for all that passive cooling goodness. Its mounted the same way as the clubsport and csl dd to mount them on the rig. So half thread these nuts, slide the wheelbase in. Can even be side mounted the same way. Painless, 10 out of 10. Same Quick release is a NRG dspec type, same as moza and simagic. 21bit encoder with a motor that feels not to have a lot of cogging on a 9Nm wheelbase. Its almost simagic like. Almost.

At the back all the connections and buttons, usbC, three rj types for pedals and the future shifter and handbrake, as well as power and bluetooth for the app.

It comes with a desk mount and even something gimmicky, a phone mount.

The pedals are reminiscent from the csl pedals or Moza SRP. Easy to assemble. 100Kg loadcell, actually sturdy construction, though the mounting point at the loadcell is hidden so a little bit of disassembling first needs to be done. Theres even extra elastomers in the box, that way this is ready to use over the floor. There quite a lot of adjustability. Pedal tilt, pedal faces position, travel, side to side on the pedal plate. For what is a simplistic design its well built and thought of. Also, they did the fanatec thing of leaving the control box next to the pedal plate, so you need to connect the RJ cable that goes to the wheelbase beforehand.  

The wheel is 300mm with a 6x70 mounting. So it what it comes in the box is more a hub that just a wheel. 12buttons, a 7 way funky, a rotary with a click to change profiles on the go. Because its 6x70 it should be comaptibly with plenty of wheels, noit all because theres a cutout, but even so, some shims might do the trick. 

Everything is well built, well put together. Price is more or less reasonable as a pck. So whats the catch?

Come closer. The wheelbase only works with their wheel. So not only they copied the best of everything of some of the most popular wheelbases, they also copied the worse thing out of the fanatec ecosystem, but in that case I can emulate a solution with 25quid. What the fuck. Why do you give me the most popular quick release known to be a marker of an open system, to then just bait and switch me and say “nuh uh”. I dont get it.

Ive reached out to NACON over this, they said “Currently no other wheel is compatible for now with the base.

It's something NACON is looking at for mid-term / long term but as of yet there is no definitive date.

In summary NACON is looking to quickly expand their ecosystem with add-ons, different wheels, rims which will all be compatible with each other.”. disappointing

Software time, called revosim racing wheel, good name, needs to be on in order work with telemetry with the three games that are supported at the moment. Theres also an app to change settings. Its a fairly straightforward app, a mix between asetek racehub and simagic simpro, with the ease of use of the fanatec app. Once again here, they picked up the best of each brand and made it something of their own.

Theres not a lot to change on the wheelbase in terms of options, but the bases are there, power, effects, damping and filtering. Theres even some profiles that are abl to be swapped via the wheel rotary button.

For the pedals I recommend that you do a quick calibration to unlock the whole loadcell sensitivity. Theres also option to change curves, change the loadcell sensitivity if you find the full 100kg is too much.

For the wheel just basic stuff, just to change the LEDs and nothing else at the moment. 

All the updates are managed inside the software, really cant complain about the software. Easy to use, easy to understand, well laid out.

So lets go for the driving. And its rather OK. As a whole, really. I cant say Im flabbergasted by any particular item, but as a whole this set works rather nicely. 

The best part of the pack is the wheelbase, absolutely. It feels super faster for a wheelbase of this caliber, even if doesnt feel as strong as the evo sport. Its plenty strong enough I will say, but this feels like that the sustained torque levels are noticeably lower than the 9Nm. 

As for the experience with it, well, its positive but it does feel it lacks some of the presence of the more established counter parts. It provides a good deal of detail in Assetto Corsa, positive experience, same in Le Mans ultimate and iracing. But in all of these three, comparatively with the other wheelbases of the same class,  it feels like that the tyre effects, kerbing, understeer and oversteer feel is not as present. Without any damping and friction it also makes the steering kind of vague.

On the other hand, in ACC it felt one of the best in class. Great detail, good sense of weight of the car without being overly dampened. That means the wheelbase in general has potential and the main blocker for a more consistent driving experience with these titles, and probably more, is the firmware and software that arent at the level of polish needed.

I tried a bit of rally, not my main thing. Ea wrc had no ffb, couldnt find a way to make it work, its not the first wheelbase with this issue though, and Dirt Rally was actually a decent experience. So, its a decent all rounder I think

Which leads me to the pedals. I thought they would lack polish by looking at them being rather samey as other sets of the like. To be fair, thats not the case at all. These are a quite a decent feeling pedal set. As they come, they come titled for floor usage, which means for rig use then, they need to have a more upright tilt, and  that can be easilyachieved. The throttle is basic, with decent feel and weight. 

But these pedals are only as good as the brake, which in this case is a load cell. I must say that the blue elastomer stack that comes in the  set as stock is kind of bad, if not for floor use, but, mixing and matching the elastomers, whatever colors they may be, makes the brake feel rather good for the price. It was the biggest surprise here. I think NACON has chosen a good mix of elastomer rigidness. The reds dont have a lot of progression, the blues too much, and the yellows, just right, but mixing and matching will definitely allow a rigid pedal with stages for trail braking, if you want. I really, really cant complain about the pedal set which for a bundled set is nothing but good news.

So that leaves with the wheel or hub. This is the weakest link. At the stand alone price isnt bad per se. It does have good parts. Its a comfortable wheel, the ergonomics for a button box are decent, the buttons have just an OK click, the shifters could be better but arent tragic, the LEDS are actually nice. The rotary dial is a bit loose, the funky switch is nice But this is the only wheel, or hub you can use with the RS wheelbase. With a hub that doesnt have support for telemetry just yet. This is what we call in the industry as being kneecaped. The number of inputs are rather small if you want to drive something that requires control of multiples systems.

This sends me to the conclusion. Im confused. The pure RS is obviously not a halfassed job. It doesnt feel like a money grab at all. By the contrary, physically, every single piece of this set has a lot of polish. The unboxing, wheelbase, connections, the attention to detail. They have done a really good job highlighting what ecosystem had for positives and thought “hey, lets build something with just the positives”. Considering the price, that even may not be the cheapest, I think they did a good job. 

The experience is actually really good too. The wheelbase shows potential, they definitely need the experience getting the firmware to bring more out of the capable wheel base, the pedals are shockingly good considering the price, and the wheel is not half bad as well. The pedals, a good match for an entry level. Very competent. 

But then, what gave me the most hope when I consider what Ive experienced and what this could be, the quick release, just kicks me in the nuts and says “computer says no”, literally locking the user experience with a wheel that barely has full functionality with no way or ecosystem to go around it.

So, if you want something that works out of the box and works in a surprisingly good way, generally, if you exclude the telemetry, the Pure RS pack is something to consider. However, youll be limited to just this, and simracing is so much more than that, most of you will be like Ariel, wanting more flexibility, using something like this, or like this, because this wheelbase has actually the torque to support it. In that case, hard pass. Not an alternative, to Moza, Fanatec or simagic. It may change in the future. But theres no indication it will.

You were this close.