joycontrol

Emulate Nintendo Switch Controllers over Bluetooth.

Tested on Ubuntu 19.10, and with Raspberry Pi 3B+ and 4B Raspbian GNU/Linux 10 (buster)

Features

Emulation of JOYCON_R, JOYCON_L and PRO_CONTROLLER. Able to send:

• button commands
• stick state
• nfc data

Installation

• Install dependencies

Ubuntu: Install the dbus-python and libhidapi-hidraw0 packages

sudo apt install python3-dbus libhidapi-hidraw0

Arch Linux Derivatives: Install the hidapi and bluez-utils-compat(AUR) packages

• Clone the repository and install the joycontrol package to get missing dependencies (Note: Controller script needs super user rights, so python packages must be installed as root). In the joycontrol folder run:

sudo pip3 install .

• Disable the bluez "input" plugin, see #8

Command line interface example

• Run the script

sudo python3 run_controller_cli.py PRO_CONTROLLER

This will create a PRO_CONTROLLER instance waiting for the Switch to connect.

• Open the "Change Grip/Order" menu of the Switch

The Switch only pairs with new controllers in the "Change Grip/Order" menu.

Note: If you already connected an emulated controller once, you can use the reconnect option of the script (-r "<Switch Bluetooth Mac address>"). This does not require the "Change Grip/Order" menu to be opened. You can find out a paired mac address using the "bluetoothctl" system command.

• After connecting, a command line interface is opened. Note: Press <enter> if you don't see a prompt.

Call "help" to see a list of available commands.

• If you call "test_buttons", the emulated controller automatically navigates to the "Test Controller Buttons" menu.

Issues

• Some bluetooth adapters seem to cause disconnects for reasons unknown, try to use an usb adapter instead
• Incompatibility with Bluetooth "input" plugin requires a bluetooth restart, see #8
• It seems like the Switch is slower processing incoming messages while in the "Change Grip/Order" menu. This causes flooding of packets and makes pairing somewhat inconsistent. Not sure yet what exactly a real controller does to prevent that. A workaround is to use the reconnect option after a controller was paired once, so that opening of the "Change Grip/Order" menu is not required.
• ...

Resources

Nintendo_Switch_Reverse_Engineering

console_pairing_session