Sim Gaming Expo 2026 - Chicago, Sept 18–20
North America's first expo for sim racing, flight & VR. Test the latest gear, meet the creators, score show-only deals. Schaumburg, Chicago - September 18–20.
The Heusinkveld DisplayDash is one of the more interesting upcoming products in sim racing right now, and honestly, it did not take long to understand why. Even as a working prototype at the expo, this thing already looked like a very serious bit of kit. Thin, clean, premium, and packed with far more functionality than most traditional button boxes manage to offer.
What makes it stand out most is that it is not only a dash and not only a button box. It is both at the same time, and it seems to be trying to solve one of the more annoying little issues in sim racing hardware. Namely, the fact that most button boxes still rely on stickers, memory, or a lot of guesswork once you start mapping more advanced controls. That is the main idea here, and on paper at least, it is a very good one.
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Heusinkveld first revealed the DisplayDash earlier this year, and since then the company has continued refining the concept before showing it off again in public. The product is being positioned as a combined digital dash and button box, built around the idea of giving users physical controls with live on-screen context instead of fixed printed labels.
That is really the whole pitch in one sentence. You get the tactile feel of proper hardware inputs, but instead of relying on static stickers, the screen itself can show what each control is doing at any moment. For anyone who uses a lot of in-car functions, that is a genuinely smart direction, because it makes the unit feel much more adaptable than a traditional button box.
As of the latest official update, Heusinkveld has said the unit is still targeting a late spring 2026 release window, with pricing expected at around €300. That is obviously still a very important part of the discussion, because if the final retail price stays near that level, this could become a very serious value proposition for the amount of hardware being offered.
In terms of physical controls, the DisplayDash is loaded. Heusinkveld says it includes 12 push rotaries, 4 buttons, and 1 seven-way switch, for a total of 47 inputs. That alone would already make it a pretty serious button box. But then on top of that, every control sits in front of a display area that can show live context, values, or labels, which is where the product starts feeling much more ambitious than most of the category.
There is also a separate dashboard area across the top for more traditional telemetry or SimHub dash layouts, and the whole display is said to be touchscreen. So this is not a case of a simple dash with a few buttons underneath it. It is more like a full control interface built around one integrated display surface, which is why it immediately feels more modern than the usual approach.
That modern feel is helped further by the lighting. Heusinkveld says there are 17 fully configurable RGB LEDs across the inputs, and from what has been shown so far, there seems to be a lot of room for visual customization. For something that is still technically a utility product, it does not exactly look dull.
One of the more interesting parts of the official April update is that Heusinkveld openly acknowledged how much the product has changed already. The company says the unit now has a refined housing, slimmer bezels, a larger screen, better RGB visibility, and better viewing angles around the push rotaries and buttons. In other words, this is not a case where the January prototype simply got rubber-stamped and sent to production.
That is good to hear, because products like this live or die on polish. The concept is strong, but if the screen looked cramped, the housing felt cheap, or the visuals were hard to read from a driving position, the whole idea would start falling apart. Based on what Heusinkveld is saying and what has been shown, the company seems very aware of that and has been refining the design in the right areas.
Another important update is the move to a full aluminum body. That matters a lot because at around three hundred euros, people are going to expect something that feels premium in the hand, not just clever on a spec sheet. A full aluminum housing makes the product sound much more serious straight away.
Another thing I really like here is that the setup sounds much cleaner than many people would expect from a dash product. Heusinkveld says the DisplayDash uses a single USB connection and does not need HDMI or DisplayPort. That is a very good decision. The last thing a lot of sim rigs need is yet another messy cable situation just to add more controls and telemetry.
It is also confirmed to be SimHub compatible on PC, which is obviously essential for a product like this. SimHub support means people can use existing dashboards, custom layouts, and the sort of flexibility that actually makes a hybrid unit like this worthwhile in the first place. Without that, the concept would feel much more limited.
Then around the back, Heusinkveld has included 100 by 100 VESA mounting and even a two-port USB hub. Those are small details, but they make the whole thing feel much more thought through. This is clearly meant to fit naturally into a rig rather than act like some awkward standalone gadget you need to work around.
The reason the DisplayDash feels so promising is not just that it has a lot of features. It is that the whole package seems to solve a real problem. Most button boxes are only flexible up to a point. Once you start changing car classes, sims, or control mappings, the labels no longer make sense, the stickers start looking messy, and the whole thing becomes harder to use quickly and confidently.
This, at least in theory, fixes that. If the on-screen context works as cleanly as Heusinkveld is promising, then the DisplayDash could be one of the most user-friendly control solutions in sim racing. That is especially true for people who regularly jump between cars or games and want their hardware to adapt with them rather than stay locked into one layout forever.
And then there is the price. If this really lands around the promised three hundred euro mark, it starts looking very compelling. Because at that point, you are not only getting a button box. You are also getting a dash, live labels, touchscreen input, RGB control, USB expansion, and a premium housing. That is a lot.
So far, the Heusinkveld DisplayDash looks like one of the more impressive upcoming utility products in sim racing. It is thin, premium-looking, packed with inputs, fully SimHub compatible, and smart in a way that a lot of button boxes simply are not. More importantly, it seems built around a genuinely useful idea rather than just trying to add another screen for the sake of adding a screen.
Of course, there are still some unanswered questions. We still need to see the final production version, final feel, and actual release timing. And as with anything built this heavily around software integration, the real test will be how smooth and polished the day-to-day experience ends up being once people get it into their rigs.
But for now, the early impression is very strong. If Heusinkveld gets the execution right and keeps the pricing close to where it has been hinted, the DisplayDash could easily become one of the most compelling button box and dash combinations on the market.
