Mark Connolly
All projects

Integration · June 2025 – August 2025

trophi.ai + Fanatec Integration

An end-to-end integration between Fanatec hardware and trophi.ai's coaching layer, so the rig itself becomes part of how the driver is coached, instead of a separate device the software has to talk around.

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Native desktop concept

trophi.ai, living inside Fanatec's desktop app

This prototype looks at a native Fanatec desktop experience that folds trophi.ai's coaching technology into Fanatec's existing UI language, instead of bolting on a second app. The partnership is structured as a profit share, so the design goal was a single, cohesive sim racing experience for Fanatec users, where coaching, telemetry, and hardware setup all sit alongside each other rather than being split across two products the driver has to switch between.

Context

Fanatec is the dominant hardware brand in sim racing, so partnering with them gave trophi.ai access to input fidelity no software-only competitor could realistically match. It also meant designing across firmware, desktop software, and two separate product surfaces in parallel, because every decision had to hold up in all of them at the same time.

Problem

The integration crossed three product surfaces, each with its own conventions, and users tended to notice any seam between them very quickly. Fanatec's brand and trophi.ai's brand also had to coexist comfortably in the same UI, although that part could not turn into a co-branding exercise that pulled focus away from the coaching itself.

My role

Product Designer on the trophi.ai side of the partnership. I owned the integration UX end to end and aligned the design with Fanatec's existing hardware UI language so the two products read as one experience instead of two stitched together.

Goals

  • G1Get the driver to a working setup with one install and one pairing step, so there is a single source of truth for whether coaching is live.
  • G2Surface hardware-aware coaching cues that a software-only setup cannot offer, since that is what justifies the partnership in the first place.
  • G3Make the partnership legible inside the product, while keeping the UI from turning into a logo wall.

Process

  1. 01Audited the existing Fanatec desktop app to identify shared primitives, so the integration could borrow patterns drivers already recognised.
  2. 02Designed a pairing flow that hides the underlying protocol detail behind a single status, because drivers should not have to reason about subsystems to know if coaching is on.
  3. 03Worked closely with both engineering teams to define the data contract between the two products, which is what made the single-status model possible in the first place.

Key design decisions

Decision 01

One status, not five

Drivers do not need to know which subsystem is connected. The only question they actually care about is whether coaching is live, so the UI rolls every underlying connection state up into a single, honest status.

Decision 02

Hardware cues, software voice

The coach references the wheel and pedals by name when it genuinely changes the advice, and stays quiet about hardware the rest of the time. In practice, that kept the integration feeling useful instead of gimmicky.

User flow

  1. Step 1

    Driver plugs in their Fanatec hardware and trophi.ai detects it automatically in the background.

  2. Step 2

    Driver confirms pairing once, after which coaching is live without any further setup.

  3. Step 3

    During the session, feedback becomes hardware-aware where it adds value, and stays silent everywhere else.

Outcome / impact

92%
Pairing success first try
+41%
Fanatec-user retention
Co-marketed
Joint launch

Reflection

Partnerships are usually a design problem before they are a business one, because the work that decides whether a deal feels valuable to users tends to live in the seams between two products. In practice, the cleanest version of this integration was the one drivers never thought about. That was also the version that made the underlying commercial relationship easiest to defend.

Next project

On-Track AI Voice Coach