Ever since I installed three Simucube ActivePedal Pro units, I’ve been asked the same question: what’s the point in having all three? The brake is the obvious application for an active pedal, but does spending this sort of money on an active throttle actually make sense?
After several weeks of using one as my throttle, I think the answer depends entirely on why you’re buying it. If you want an ActivePedal purely for traction-control or wheel-slip effects, I’d struggle to justify it. If what you want is almost unlimited software-controlled adjustment, the argument becomes much stronger.
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Why you shouldn’t buy an ActivePedal as a throttle
Let’s start with the reasons not to buy one, because there are several.
1. It’s enormously expensive for a throttle
The obvious problem is price. At the time of this review you’re looking at close to €2,000 for an ActivePedal Pro, and there are plenty of excellent conventional throttles costing a fraction of that. Some work as standalone USB devices and others can be integrated alongside an ActivePedal brake.
You absolutely do not need to spend this much money to get a great-feeling throttle.
2. The haptic effects are more limited than you might expect
This is probably the biggest caveat. Simucube Tuner can provide effects including motor vibration, traction control and G-force, but the pedal can only reproduce telemetry the simulator actually exposes.
For iRacing users in particular, traction-control and tyre-slip information isn’t available to the pedal in the way you might expect. If your main reason for buying an active throttle is feeling traction control or traction loss through your foot, that can be a deal-breaker.
I would also love proper SimHub support. The fact that some ActivePedal owners add external Simagic-style haptic motors using third-party adapters tells you there’s demand for effects that the hardware itself should theoretically be capable of producing. On something this sophisticated, I’d much rather have those effects generated directly by the ActivePedal.
3. You can’t invert it
If you’re building an inverted pedal setup, the Simucube ActivePedal isn’t designed to be mounted that way. That immediately rules it out for some cockpit configurations.
4. It’s huge and heavy
The physical size is another serious consideration. These pedals are enormous. On my ASR Pro cockpit they extend roughly 20cm beyond the rear of the normal pedal area, meaning my entire rig has to sit farther away from the wall.
I would also be very cautious about putting several of them on a motion simulator. Adding this much weight to the moving part of a rig isn’t something I’d personally want to do without carefully considering the effect on the motion system.
Why the active throttle is still incredible
After that list you’d be forgiven for thinking I’m against the idea. I’m not. The ActivePedal Pro is absolutely incredible as a throttle – just not necessarily for the reasons people initially imagine.
The killer feature is adjustability.
Change the travel without recalibrating
With a conventional throttle, physically changing the maximum travel normally means recalibrating it. The game needs to learn where 100% throttle now lives.
The ActivePedal turns that relationship around. Simucube Tuner controls the physical pedal and tells the simulator what the input means. I can dramatically increase or decrease pedal travel and the game still sees the new end position as 100% without me recalibrating anything.
I can do the same with weight. I can make the throttle absurdly heavy, reduce it to something comfortable or alter the travel while sitting in the cockpit. In theory, you could even make a small adjustment on a long straight during a race and continue driving without touching the game’s calibration.
That sounds like a small convenience until you’ve spent years adjusting and reviewing pedal sets. Not getting under the rig with tools, changing hardware and recalibrating afterwards is an enormous luxury.
It can imitate almost any throttle I’ve tried
This is a big claim, but after experimenting with it I stand by it: I can make the ActivePedal Pro feel every bit as good as the best conventional throttles I’ve used.
I’ve made it impossibly heavy. I’ve given it the huge travel you’d associate with a truck. I’ve made it short and rigid like a go-kart throttle. The motor gives you an extraordinary range of characteristics that no fixed mechanical throttle I’ve tested can reproduce in one product.
One conventional throttle I’ve particularly liked is the one on the Simagic P2000 pedals, where damping contributes significantly to the feel. With the ActivePedal I can create a similarly satisfying characteristic and then alter it from software whenever I want.
Force curves affect what your foot feels
Force curves are particularly interesting because they aren’t simply conventional software response curves. On a normal pedal, changing a curve generally alters how the physical position translates into game input. With an active pedal, you can also change the physical sensation through the pedal.
You can reproduce the slight initial slack of a cable-operated throttle before resistance builds. You can make the pedal progressively heavier. And you can deliberately create a physical reference point at a particular throttle position.
For example, if you know a powerful car generally starts becoming difficult around 60% throttle, you can create a subtle increase in resistance around that point. Your foot can then feel where approximately 60% is without looking at telemetry.
That’s not necessarily realistic, and I don’t personally need to drive that way. But as a training aid for somebody struggling to learn throttle position or wheelspin cues, I can absolutely see the value.
Friction is one of my favourite settings
One of the less dramatic settings made one of the biggest differences for me: friction.
Adding a tiny amount doesn’t simply make the pedal heavier. It changes how freely the pedal moves and returns, almost as if there is a little resistance in the mechanism. I only needed around five or six percent, but for me that could be the difference between an average-feeling throttle and an excellent one.
Damping is available too, although I personally preferred the friction adjustment. It’s another example of being able to tune characteristics that would normally require physical dampers or different hardware.
Shoes, socks, heel-and-toe and physical comfort
The flexibility also becomes useful when your own requirements change. If I switch between racing shoes and socks, I can alter the position, weight or travel to maintain a consistent feeling. If I’m heel-and-toeing, I can position the throttle so that rolling my foot from the brake feels natural.
More importantly, I can configure the pedal around my body rather than forcing my body to adapt to the pedal. A lot of people buying hardware at this level are in their 40s, 50s, 60s or older. Knee issues, back problems and general comfort matter, particularly during long sessions.
Sometimes I simply don’t want an aggressively heavy, realistic pedal. I want to sit down and enjoy driving. Being able to change that instantly rather than crawling underneath the cockpit is genuinely valuable to me.
You’re paying for choice, not just performance
This is ultimately how I think the price needs to be understood. You can buy an excellent conventional three-pedal set for substantially less than a single ActivePedal Pro. Set it up properly and it can feel fantastic.
The ActivePedal doesn’t magically make every conventional pedal obsolete. What the money buys is the ability to remove doubt. Instead of wondering whether another spring, damper, travel setting or pedal position would be better, you can try it immediately. Change it, feel it, change it again – all in seconds.
Many owners will probably find one setup they love and barely touch it again. If that’s you, the value proposition becomes harder to defend. But for somebody who values choice, experimentation or the ability to adapt the rig to different cars and physical needs, the software-controlled adjustment is unlike anything a normal throttle offers.
Why doesn’t everybody make active pedals yet?
Another thing that impressed me during this test is how technically difficult this product must be to engineer. Simucube had been showing active pedals for roughly two years by this point, yet other manufacturers that normally release hardware at an extraordinary pace still hadn’t delivered equivalent products.
The basic concept involves the pedal force being measured and a motor controlling a mechanism in response quickly enough that your foot experiences the intended resistance. Making that feel natural across such a huge range of forces and travel is far more sophisticated than simply bolting a vibration motor onto a pedal.
That’s worth remembering when looking at the price. I can completely understand somebody saying an active throttle isn’t worth nearly €2,000 to them. But at the time of this review there wasn’t really another product offering the same experience, and this didn’t feel like a crude first-generation prototype. It already felt remarkably mature.
Would I buy an ActivePedal Pro just for the throttle?
If your reason is haptic feedback alone, no. The telemetry limitations – particularly in iRacing – and the lack of the SimHub integration I wanted make that difficult to justify. There are dramatically cheaper ways to add useful tactile feedback to a throttle.
If you have the money and what you value is adjustability, comfort and the ability to create almost any throttle characteristic you want, then I completely understand the purchase. If I had the disposable money available, I would absolutely want one.
I also don’t think most people need the full force capability of the Pro specifically for throttle duty. A future lower-force and lower-cost ActivePedal would make enormous sense here, because nobody needs anything approaching a 30kg throttle, never mind the full capability available from the Pro.
For me, the active throttle isn’t really about force feedback. It’s about having a throttle that can become almost whatever I want it to be – and doing it without getting out of the seat.
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