Beam Eye Tracker 2.6: Native Linux and macOS support

Beam Eye Tracker 2.6 brings native support for Linux and macOS. The new Game Connection tab lets you choose how Beam sends tracking data to games, including a new Optimized driver for lower-latency, smoother in-game camera movement with Immersive Camera. The tab also automatically discovers Wine, Proton, and CrossOver compatibility environments. Beam SDK 2.2.0 adds Linux and macOS support.

New Settings

• Use the Game Connection tab to choose how Beam sends tracking data to a game, with options including Head Tracking Device Emulation, UDP over Network, and Through Opentrack Application.

• The new Optimized driver for Head Tracking Device Emulation reduces latency and delivers smoother in-game camera movement when using Immersive Camera. If a game is incompatible, select the Compatibility driver instead.

• A transparency slider replaces Recenter Tracking Overlay Shows On Top, letting you choose how much of the overlay remains visible during gameplay.

Compatibility Environments (Linux, macOS)

• The Game Connection tab discovers and configures compatibility environments created by Wine, Proton, CrossOver, Lutris, and other tools based on Wine. (Linux, macOS)

New Beam SDK 2.2.0

• Beam Eye Tracker 2.6 supports Beam SDK 2.2.0, which adds native support for Linux and macOS.

• Beam SDK 2.2.0 requires a runtime plugin only available in Beam Eye Tracker 2.6.3 or later. This was designed to maximize future compatibility.

• Older Beam SDK versions remain compatible with Beam Eye Tracker 2.6. If you use Immersive Camera, we strongly recommend updating to SDK 2.2.0.

• Beam SDK 2.2.0 adds beta support for Godot and JavaScript, plus Python 3.14 support.

• For downloads and information, visit https://docs.beam.eyeware.tech

Thank you!

Thanks to all of you who helped test the beta. Drop us a note here, join us on Discord, or send us an email at [email protected] if you have feedback.

Recent Improvements

2.6.5

• Fixed an issue where Retina and mixed-scale multi-display layouts could cause correctly arranged screens to overlap or become misaligned, making multi-display features unreliable. (Linux, macOS)

• Multi-Screen Pointer and Presence Detection now work on Linux and macOS. (Linux, macOS)

• When a feature requires additional permissions, Beam provides an explicit Grant Permission action. This includes Camera, Input Monitoring, and Accessibility permissions. (macOS)

• The full-screen Calibration interface now stays on the current desktop Space for a smoother experience. (macOS)

• Webcam management now configures the preferred resolution and frame rate more reliably. You may need to reselect your webcam in Tracker Settings. (macOS)

• Compatibility-environment discovery and configuration are now faster and can be controlled dynamically from the user interface. This also fixes filesystem-access issues with Steam on Linux. (Linux, macOS)

• Changes in the Productivity and Privacy and Eye Tracking Overlay settings now save automatically instead of requiring you to click Save.

• Fixed the blank window that appeared when relaunching Beam Eye Tracker from the Windows Start menu and the title bar that appeared in the Calibration window. (Windows)

2.6.4

• You no longer need to find and enter a Wine prefix and runner manually. Launch the game or its launcher while Beam is running, and Beam detects and configures the environment automatically. The add (+) button now explains this simpler workflow instead of opening a manual configuration form. (Linux)

• Changing or removing the Beam driver in a Wine or Proton environment now takes a few seconds instead of up to 60 seconds. (Linux)

• Fixed an issue that caused full-screen overlays to appear black on some systems. (Linux)

• Beam no longer crashes when a webcam advertises a video format that the app cannot safely process. Unsupported formats are ignored, and cameras with no usable formats are no longer offered for selection. (Windows)

• A newer bundled Microsoft GameInput installer is expected to fix Beam updates that failed on some Windows versions while handling a possible GameInput downgrade. We are still validating this on affected systems. (Windows)