Fanatec using encryption to lock out wheel conversions

[RobertR1]

From Sim Racing Machines posted on facebook direct drive group regarding the new F1 wheel and potentially future wheels from Fanatec.

"Good evening (In the UK),

I am sending you this email because you have a “back in stock subscription” live on Sim Racing Machines web shop and I wanted to give you an update on progress of the conversion.

We have been working on the wheel for a couple of weeks now and it seems that Fanatec has decided to block any conversion by adding a high level of security encryption to the wheel. Basically, when connected the wheel generates a random code which it sends to the base. The base then uses this code to return another code to the wheel. Only once this process is complete does the wheel come to life. If it is not completed the wheel is dormant and cannot be used.

Once the wheel is “alive” we can communicate with it and get it converted, but as soon as it loses power the start-up sequence is required again.

It is very unlikely that we can simulate this start-up process, it is too secure.

We are exploring ways of keeping the wheel alive using a battery. This would not be ideal but might be an acceptable solution.

We continue to work on the conversion, but I am sorry to say that the chances of a simple conversion are very small.

It’s a shame Fanatec have decided to protect their wheels in this way, but we must respect their decision.

Again, I am sorry to bring bad news."

I'm not a Fanatec user so this doesn't impact me but I know many are so this might be something you want to be aware of with regards to the new F1 wheel and potentially going forward.

I assume they want a captive audience within their ecosystem only and that's fine. It's their business choice. However, ultimately this will lead to good competition and new products on the market so there's always a silver lining to these things.

 

[anton_Chez]

I use converted rims but I am not sure if I'll be buying any more. I have 3 and they pretty much cover all cars. One day I will move away from the Fanatec rims but for now they do a good job.

 

[Daniel Watkin]

Well that's disappointing to say the least. Was looking forward to a new range of wheels to use on my OSW. I can see why they have done it, they only want their wheels used on Fanatec hardware. Does that mean I'll be rushing out to buy a Fanatec direct drive wheel tomorrow? Absolutely not. Both of the Fanatec products I have owned so far have had issues within months of owning them. Not taking that risk on a £1000 piece of hardware.

 

[super_gt]

Steering Wheel Compatibility
"We get several inquiries about the compatibility of our steering wheels to other Direct Drive systems.

Fanatec is supporting open systems and we made our wheel bases, pedals, shifters and handbrakes compatible with other products as you can use them with USB together with any other brand.

We also allow and welcome the use of custom steering wheels on our wheel bases as long as there is no connection to our electronics and those wheels are using the Universal Hub or the upcoming Podium Wheel Adapter as a basis. This has several reasons:

• Untested devices can damage your wheel base. The electronics as well as the mechanics.
• Our products are fully certified (CE, FCC etc.) and this certification is only valid with original Fanatec equipment
• Our license partners do not tolerate a connection of untested devices on their consoles

For the same reasons we do not allow the connection of one of our steering wheels to an adapter and use it on an untested non-Fanatec wheel base. You risk damage to your steering wheel and of course will lose the warranty.
Because it is hard for us to identify if a steering wheel was used on such an adapter we had to encrypt the communication between the wheel base and the steering wheel in order to prevent the wrong usage.
Our Podium DD has a special QR adapter on the base side which prevents any shaking and therefore damage. This is very important with the high forces of Direct Drive Wheels. Therefore I can only emphasize that you should use your Fanatec steering wheels only with Fanatec wheel bases in order to avoid damage.
We could probably make some more money by tolerating the use of our steering wheels on OSW but those customers could end up in a bad surprise with damaged products without warranty. Therefore please take the compatibility notes on our product description serious and use your Fanatec products only in the way they were designed."

 

[BenKay]

The end of that mail is a long way away from the early "Fanatec is supporting open systems..." line.

 

[Daniel Watkin]

Honest translation. “We only want you to use our wheels on Fanataec direct drive bases, which haven’t actually been released yet, sucks to be you”.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Pfft, more business for Martin Ascher and such.

 

[anton_Chez]

I like Fanatec rims and hope to see some new ones in the Podium line up. However, they sure are making life hard to anyone wanting to own and use one without a Fanatec base. I mean, they can sell more product making them at least not locked out of other systems. The way to push your products is to create a good one, price it competitively, have it available for purchase in ample quantity around the world, and promote your product as the one to invest in. NOT to take existing usability away in an attempt to corner people into your ecosystem.

Fanatec can do what it likes, it's their brand but whatever happened to just putting up a quality item that did the job it was designed for, for a fair price? That's a pretty good advertising campaign in itself.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Given that OSW adapters for Fanatec rims have been available for quite a while, the pending release of their new DD wheelbases and head to head competition with OSW seems a more likely issue.

Another issue could be that OSW sales are rising quickly and Fantec has noticed they are selling a lot of wheels without a lot of wheel bases.

However what we don't know is what kind of warranty support they are dealing with. I recently saw a picture of a Fanatec rim that was ripped apart on an OSW system. Frankly the amount of bad press generated by stuff like that may be more of a concern than a few warranty issues. It's also possible that there are a bunch of 30nm OSW motors out there tearing their rims up and Fanatec is sick and tired of dealing with it.

Without being inside Fanatec corporate we can speculate all we want but we can't know how much of this is really support related and how much of it is purely sales related.

As someone who has a complete Fanatec system using their "current" top of the line equipment, I'm not quite sure how I feel yet. However doing something like this to "proactively" address an issue sales or support also generates a lot of bad press which could hurt them more.

Time will tell...

 

[Daniel Watkin]

Steering Wheel Compatibility
"We get several inquiries about the compatibility of our steering wheels to other Direct Drive systems.

Fanatec is supporting open systems and we made our wheel bases, pedals, shifters and handbrakes compatible with other products as you can use them with USB together with any other brand.

We also allow and welcome the use of custom steering wheels on our wheel bases as long as there is no connection to our electronics and those wheels are using the Universal Hub or the upcoming Podium Wheel Adapter as a basis. This has several reasons:

• Untested devices can damage your wheel base. The electronics as well as the mechanics.
• Our products are fully certified (CE, FCC etc.) and this certification is only valid with original Fanatec equipment
• Our license partners do not tolerate a connection of untested devices on their consoles

For the same reasons we do not allow the connection of one of our steering wheels to an adapter and use it on an untested non-Fanatec wheel base. You risk damage to your steering wheel and of course will lose the warranty.
Because it is hard for us to identify if a steering wheel was used on such an adapter we had to encrypt the communication between the wheel base and the steering wheel in order to prevent the wrong usage.
Our Podium DD has a special QR adapter on the base side which prevents any shaking and therefore damage. This is very important with the high forces of Direct Drive Wheels. Therefore I can only emphasize that you should use your Fanatec steering wheels only with Fanatec wheel bases in order to avoid damage.
We could probably make some more money by tolerating the use of our steering wheels on OSW but those customers could end up in a bad surprise with damaged products without warranty. Therefore please take the compatibility notes on our product description serious and use your Fanatec products only in the way they were designed."

A Fanatec staff member has posted a further explanation on the blog as to why they have decided to manufacture the wheels in this way. It seems they can't find an explanation as for why anybody would want to use a non Fanatec DD base that isn't even available yet...

 

[BenKay]

A Fanatec staff member has posted a further explanation on the blog as to why they have decided to manufacture the wheels in this way. It seems they can't find an explanation as for why anybody would want to use a non Fanatec DD base that isn't even available yet...

That's not just a staff member, it's Mr. Bigwig himself....seems a strangely thought out argument to me...they'd be better just coming clean and saying that by locking out the communication between wheel and base, they believe it will stimulate higher sales of the Podium series, whenever that gets released.

It's so see-through it's laughable...so just say it. At the end of the day, they've built a nice eco-system, the QR and pin connections are nice and avoid cables to the wheels themselves.
It's their eco-system and they're free to do what they want with it therefore, want to keep it locked to own-products, fine, but don't treat customers as ignorant to the truth.

 

[BenKay]

DUPLICATE POST SORRY

 

[_GZ_]

They could easily have told their customers about the new encryption BEFORE they sold the new F1 LE wheel to all the poor suckers. Lots of empty fancy words from Fanatec now afterwards...