SimHub
Last updated · checked against SimHub 9.11.22
SimHub is the software almost every sim racing dashboard, rev light, gear indicator and bass shaker runs on. It is free, it is Windows-only, and one developer has maintained it for around nine years. This is a plain-English guide to what it does, what it costs and how to get it working — written for anyone using it, not just people who bought hardware from us.
Own one of our displays? Rev Gauge, Gear Indicator or iFlag — install, connect over USB-C and load your profileWhere to start
If you have never opened it: install SimHub, pick your game, then connect one piece of hardware and get that working before adding anything else. Most problems people report are two things configured at once, with no way to tell which one is wrong.
Start here
- Installing SimHub Download, the SmartScreen warning, and the missing .NET that makes it hang on startup with no error.
- Is SimHub free? Yes, and fully functional. What the pay-what-you-want licence changes, and what 10FPS actually feels like.
- Your phone as a speedometer The fastest way to see SimHub do something useful — free, five minutes, nothing installed on the phone.
- Troubleshooting Start from the symptom rather than the subsystem. A decision tree that routes to the fix.
Dashboards and screens
- Dashboards What Dash Studio is, and the four places one dashboard can appear.
- Build your own dashboard From an empty canvas, with every widget in the toolbox catalogued from the interface.
- The best dashboards An editorial roundup by sim and screen size, because no index existed.
- Overlays Transparent windows over the game, the 480,000-pixel limit, and the truth about VR.
Haptics and hardware
- ShakeIt haptics Bass shakers versus motors, and the four gain stages that multiply into almost nothing.
- Bass shaker setup Audio interfaces, the Windows settings that silence them, and a tuning method that converges.
- Arduino Supported boards — and the Uno R4, which is sold as an Uno and is not supported.
- Shift lights The RPM range that decides whether they work, and the mistakes that make them useless.
Games and reference
- Per-game setup Eighteen games in detail, organised by the four ways telemetry actually reaches SimHub.
- Every supported game The official list with the footnote symbols decoded — one asterisk changes what you can expect.
- Every supported device 217 of them in 9.11.22, read from the device picker. SimHub publishes no list.
- PS5 and Xbox What actually works with a console, and why you still need a PC.
What SimHub actually is
SimHub is a desktop application that reads live telemetry out of a racing game — revs, gear, speed, flags, wheel slip, G-force — and sends it somewhere useful. That destination might be a dashboard on your phone, a strip of LEDs on your wheel base, a bass shaker under your seat, or a motion rig. It is the layer between the game and the hardware, and it is why a £25 LED bar can show you the same shift lights as a £2,000 wheel.
What it does
-
Dashboards
Build or install a dashboard and show it on a second monitor, a phone or tablet over your network, a small USB display, or as a transparent overlay on top of the game. Dashboards are authored in Dash Studio and shipped as .simhubdash files.
-
Hardware output
Drive Arduino-based devices: RGB LED strips for shift lights, 8x8 matrices for gear indicators and flags, seven-segment displays and button boxes. SimHub generates and uploads the firmware itself — there is no code to write.
-
Haptics
ShakeIt drives bass shakers through a dedicated sound card and rumble motors through an Arduino or supported pad, turning kerbs, ABS, wheel slip and engine vibration into something you feel through the seat and pedals.
-
Telemetry and motion
Record and replay laps, expose properties to other software, and — with the paid Motion Addon — drive a motion platform.
What you need
- Windows 11 x64. Windows 10 is, in the developer's own words, not tested and not guaranteed.
- .NET Framework 4.8. Without it SimHub hangs on startup at "Initializing: CoreData".
- A PC running the game, or a PC on the same network as a console.
- For Arduino hardware: a supported board and the right USB driver.
- For bass shakers: a dedicated sound card, separate from your game audio.
What it costs
SimHub is free and fully functional. A pay-what-you-want perpetual licence removes the limits, with preset tiers of €30, €20, €15, €10 and €8. The licence raises hardware update rates from 10FPS to 60FPS, adds automatic game switching and start-minimised, and removes the nag screens. The Motion Addon is separate and paid.
10FPS is not a theoretical limit. Shift lights refreshed ten times a second are visibly behind the engine at the redline, and bass shaker effects lose their edges.
Common questions
Is SimHub free?
Yes. It is free and fully functional, with two limits: hardware updates are capped at 10FPS instead of 60FPS, and there is no automatic game switching. A pay-what-you-want perpetual licence removes both, starting at €8.
Does SimHub work on Mac or Linux?
No. SimHub is a Windows desktop application built on .NET Framework 4.8 and there is no Mac or Linux build. A Mac can display a SimHub dashboard in a browser over the network, but the SimHub application itself has to run on a Windows PC.
Does SimHub work with PS5 and Xbox?
Partly, and not the way people expect. SimHub always runs on a Windows PC — it never runs on the console. Some console titles broadcast telemetry over the network that a PC running SimHub can receive, notably Gran Turismo 7 and the F1 series. You need both machines on the same network.
Is SimHub the same as Thrustmaster's TM Sim Hub?
No, and the two are frequently confused. SimHub is telemetry software by an independent developer. Thrustmaster's "TM Sim Hub" is a hardware product. There is also an unrelated eSIM app using the same name.
Do I need SimHub to use oesimracing displays?
Yes. Every display we make is driven by SimHub over USB-C, and it is PC-only for that reason. That is a real constraint and we would rather you knew it before ordering than after.
How many games does SimHub support?
112 titles are listed officially, though support varies by game: some provide full telemetry, some provide data but no motion, and some provide motion only. The level depends on what each game publishes, not on SimHub.
We make SimHub-driven displays, so we are not a neutral party — but this page is written to be useful whether or not you buy anything. SimHub is developed independently by Wotever and is not affiliated with oesimracing. The authority on it is simhubdash.com.