Zeekr adds AirConsole and a light-synced PAC-MAN

AirConsole will launch inside select Zeekr models via the Connected Premium package, debuting with PAC-MAN that syncs to cabin lights.

S
StartupHub.ai Staff
3 min read
Zeekr vehicle interior displaying PAC-MAN with AirConsole and synchronized lighting
Zeekr showcases AirConsole’s PAC-MAN Championship Edition with dynamic light integration at Paris Motor Show.
Key Takeaways
  • 1
    AirConsole enters Geely Auto Group for the first time through Zeekr, bundled in Zeekr Connected Premium.

  • 2
    Integration runs natively on Zeekr infotainment, phones become controllers via QR code with no extra hardware.

  • 3
    Paris Motor Show demo in the Zeekr 7GT pairs PAC-MAN Championship Edition with ambient cabin lighting.

N-Dream is putting its AirConsole platform into Zeekr, the first Geely Auto Group brand to carry it, and showing the integration live at the 2026 Paris Motor Show.

The debut is built for the show floor. Visitors at Zeekr's stand in Hall 5.2 can play directly on the 7GT's infotainment screen, the company said. You scan a QR code, your phone becomes the controller, no dongle or console to pair.

That's the whole mechanism. AirConsole runs as an app layer inside the car, not a mirrored phone screen. Input comes in over the local connection from the phone's browser, so latency lives or dies on the car's Wi-Fi and compute, not your data plan. The surface is familiar if you've used AirConsole before: couch-play controls, quick session starts, passengers jumping in.

The show title is PAC-MAN Championship Edition, brought through AirConsole's collaboration with Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc. The twist N-Dream is pushing here is light integration. The cabin's ambient lighting syncs to on-screen action, so eating ghosts and clearing mazes bleeds into the interior. It's a simple way to make a phone-controlled arcade game feel native to the car, not just projected onto it.

The timing lines up with Zeekr's first major European exhibition, where the brand is presenting its full lineup including the Zeekr 9X, 7X, X, 001 and 7GT, the company said. The show itself, now in its 91st edition, reserved Oct. 12 for press before opening to the public Oct. 13 through Oct. 18, per Wikipedia.

Anthony Cliquot, chief executive of N-Dream, said Zeekr's speed made it a natural fit and pointed to this as the sign of where the next wave of in-car entertainment comes from: automakers that treat infotainment as core to the experience, not an add-on. Lothar Schupet, chief executive of Zeekr Europe, said the partnership is a way to explore how gaming fits the connected in-car experience.

There are limits baked in. AirConsole will roll out in select Zeekr models before the end of 2026, the company said, and only as part of Zeekr Connected Premium, the top-tier connected services package. That puts gaming behind the paywall for connectivity features, not standard across the range.

For N-Dream, the Zeekr deal extends a footprint the company said already covers more than 5 million vehicles worldwide across BMW, Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, Skoda and Tata Motors. The difference here is the parent. Geely Auto Group gives AirConsole a path to scale inside a Chinese group with European R&D and design hubs, and Zeekr gives it a premium EV cabin where that phone-as-controller workflow and light sync can actually sell time spent parked.

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