Lovely Dashboard: a SimHub telemetry display and the plugin behind it

A display design that hides which simulator you are on

The Lovely Dashboard is presented as a multifunctional, feature packed SimHub Dashboard, a DDU, which is the SimHub term for a display you switch to on your hardware, and it is described as delivering the data you need in a clean and consistent user interface across all simulators.

That consistency is the actual product. The listed simulator support runs from Assetto Corsa Competizione, iRacing, Le Mans Ultimate, Project Motor Racing, Assetto Corsa, Assetto Corsa Evo, Automobilista 2, rFactor 2, RaceRoom Racing Experience and Formula 1 through the rally titles Assetto Corsa Rally, Forza Motorsport 8, EA WRC, Dirt Rally 2.0 and Richard Burns Rally, plus generic support for all simulators that work with SimHub.

That last clause is the important one, and it is the reason the tool is worth a look. A dashboard built per simulator needs per simulator maintenance, and a racing season that spans three different titles means maintaining three layouts. One dashboard that reads SimHub's normalised properties does not have that problem.

The users are sim racers of every level, and the documentation also names professionals including Tony Kanaan, David Perel and Tim Heinemann as people who trust it.

Three artefacts shipped in one release

The release naming explains the structure of the product. The most recent tag is v4.6.1, described as Lovely Plugin v3.6.0.2 and Dashboards v4.6.1/v2.6.1, and the tag before it, v4.6.0, is described as Lovely Dashboards v4.6.0/v2.6.0. A third release, v4.5.2, covers a separate product line, Lovely Dashboard Nano.

So there is at least a plugin, a full dashboard, a second dashboard variant, and a Nano variant, plus the stream overlay mentioned in the project description as a matching companion for broadcasting.

The plugin and the dashboards are versioned on separate tracks, and the dashboards themselves carry two version numbers. That is not cosmetic bookkeeping. A dashboard is a layout definition that binds to properties the plugin exposes, and a layout written for one plugin version can reference properties that a later plugin version renames or drops. When the two numbers drift apart, a widget can stop populating, and the symptom looks like a broken dashboard rather than a version mismatch.

The pairing is therefore the thing to check before installing, not the headline version. The current pairing is plugin 3.6.0.2 with dashboards 4.6.1 and 2.6.1.

True Dark Mode and the TeamLINQ integration

Two features are called out with their own sections in the documentation. True Dark Mode appears in the navigation alongside TeamLINQ, and the repository carries a topic tag for truedarkmode, which suggests it is a supported mode rather than a colour scheme option.

For a dashboard shown on a stream or on a monitor next to a dark racing cockpit UI, a light dashboard is genuinely distracting, and a true dark rendering is more than an inverted palette because widget backgrounds, gauge faces and text contrast all have to be redrawn. The presence of a separate dashboard version line, v4.6.1 alongside v2.6.1, may relate to that, though the documentation excerpt does not state what separates the two lines.

TeamLINQ is a hardware telemetry product, the maker of the Team Sim Racing wheel bases, and it appears as a newly integrated partner in the release announcement, with dark and light logo variants supplied for the interface.

The platform side is handled through partnerships rather than built in. Simgrid, Low Fuel Motorsport and Pitskill.io appear as platform support partners, which is a sensible division, since lap timing and race data for hosted online leagues come from those services, and the dashboard consumes their data rather than hosting it.

Installing means a SimHub plugin plus a dashboard definition

The project documentation has its own Installing and Updating sections, and the top of the README links to them, but the captured text does not include their content, so the steps themselves are not stated there. What the rest of the material does tell you is the shape of the install.

There are two separate pieces to place. The Lovely Plugin is the component that talks to the simulators and normalises their telemetry into the properties SimHub understands, and it has to be installed into SimHub as a plugin. The dashboard is then a display definition, the v4 or v2 layout file, that SimHub renders onto your display hardware, and the project ships more than one so you can pick the density you want.

SimHub is the platform requirement underneath all of it. If SimHub is not already running on your machine and talking to your wheel and display hardware, none of the Lovely pieces have anything to attach to, and the simulator list in the README only applies to simulators that SimHub itself supports.

The Stream Overlay is a separate artefact for the broadcast case, laid over your game capture rather than onto a physical display, and it is distributed as part of the same membership rather than as a separate download.

One practical point on updates. Because the plugin and the dashboards are versioned separately, an update to one without the other is the likely way to end up with an empty widget. Updating both to the versions named in a single release tag, as in the current v4.6.1 pairing of plugin 3.6.0.2 with dashboards 4.6.1 and v2.6.1, is the safer route.

What this repository actually contains

Here is the part that decides whether this counts as an open source project in the sense most readers mean. The top level of the repository holds a README.md, a docs/ directory, a version.json file, a .github/ directory, a .gitignore and a .pre-commit-config.yaml. There is no source directory, no package manifest and no build script.

The README is almost entirely HTML with embedded images, and it is cut off mid-section. Most of what you see is a display of partner and platform logos wrapped in picture elements with light and dark variants, plus a table of simulator icons. There is a linked table of contents with anchors for a video guide, what is included, installing, updating, TeamLINQ, True Dark Mode, partnerships, memberships and the Lovely Dashboard ecosystem, and the sections themselves are not present in the text that was captured.

The primary language field is also unstated, which is consistent with a repository that contains no code. The project is hosted at lsr.gg, and the licence is unstated as well, so there is no grant of use, modification or redistribution in the files themselves.

In short, this is the project's public documentation and release channel, not its source tree.

The membership model, and what it means for the code

The commercial model is stated in the README. Readers are invited to become a Lovely Member and unlock the perks, with memberships starting at one euro per month, and the page links to a membership page on lsr.gg.

That reframes what this project is. It is a commercial product with a free and open source label attached to the GitHub presence, and the open repository carries the documentation, the visuals and the version metadata rather than a redistributable artefact. A dashboard layout, the plugin binary and the overlay are all things a competitor could copy if they were published, so publishing them is not what the project is doing.

This is a legitimate arrangement, and it is worth distinguishing from a project that claims an open licence and then restricts downloads. Here the licensing is simply silent, so the correct reading is that there are no rights granted in the files, and the terms for using the dashboard come from the membership and the end user agreement rather than from a licence file.

The honest way to describe the repository is then: it is where the version history, the documentation and the marketing live, and the code lives elsewhere. If you are evaluating the project on the basis of what you can read and audit here, the answer is that there is very little to audit.

Where the tool is the wrong choice

There are several clear cases where this is not the answer.

If you need a dashboard you can inspect, modify and build from source, this is not it. The source is not published, the layouts are the product being sold, and the licence terms do not grant you the right to change and redistribute them. A user who wants to adapt a layout to their own hardware display has no documented path to doing that other than requesting a change.

If you do not use SimHub, the whole ecosystem is irrelevant. Everything described here assumes SimHub is the layer that normalises telemetry across simulators, and the plugin is what connects the dashboard to that layer.

If you want the broadcast side only, the Stream Overlay is a separate piece of the ecosystem, and the membership tiers are what determine whether you receive the overlay, the dashboard, the plugin or some combination.

And if you are the kind of user who wants an open telemetry stack, the alternative approach is the opposite one. Instead of a fixed, professionally designed dashboard that reads many simulators through one plugin, you can use the individual sim racing dashboard projects, of which there are several in the public ecosystem, and customise them yourself because their source is available. The trade-off is exactly the one this project is organised around: hand-made flexibility and a project you own, against a consistent design and broad simulator coverage that you rent.

Editorial conclusion

Adopt Lovely Dashboard if you run SimHub and want a single telemetry layout that reads the same across iRacing, Assetto Corsa, Le Mans Ultimate, Formula 1 and the rest of the listed simulators, and you are willing to pay for a membership to receive it. Do not adopt it expecting a free and open source component, because the licence is unstated, the source is not in this repository, and the dashboard and overlay are the paid part of the ecosystem. Before you buy, check the version pairing for your setup, since the plugin and the dashboards are versioned separately and the current release is Plugin v3.6.0.2 with Dashboards v4.6.1 and v2.6.1, and read what the membership tier actually grants, since the plugin, the dashboard and the stream overlay are distributed as separate artefacts.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. Issues
2. Lovely-Sim-Racing/lovely-dashboard on GitHub
3. Project website
4. README
5. Releases