MissionControl

Use controllers from other consoles natively on your Nintendo Switch via Bluetooth. No dongles or other external hardware neccessary.

Features

• Connect up to 8 non-switch Bluetooth controllers simultaneously without any additional hardware.
• Low input lag.
• Make use of native HOS menus for controller pairing, button remapping (firmware 10.0.0+) etc.
• Supports all Switch firmware versions
• btdrv-mitm module adds extension IPC commands that can be used to interact with the bluetooth process without interfering with the state of the system.

Supported Controllers

Currently, the following controllers are supported. If you have a third-party variant of one of the below, or a Bluetooth controller that isn't listed, consider submitting an issue with the controller details, including vid/pid, to request support.

• Nintendo Wii Remote + extensions (Nunchuck, Classic Controller, Classic Controller Pro, SNES Mini, TaTaCon (Taiko drum))
• Nintendo WiiU Pro Controller
• Sony DualShock4 Controller
• Sony Dualsense Controller
• Microsoft Xbox One S/X Controller*
• NVidia Shield Controller
• Ouya Controller
• Gamestick Controller
• Gembox Controller
• Ipega Controllers (9017s, 9023, 9062S, 9076, 9078, 9087 9096 confirmed working. Others may also work)
• Xiaomi Mi Controller
• Steelseries Free
• Steelseries Nimbus
• GameSir G3s
• GameSir G4s
• Hori Onyx
• 8BitDo ZERO (Most other 8BitDo controllers have a Switch mode available. May require firmware update)
• PowerA Moga Hero
• PowerA Moga Pro
• PowerA Moga Pro 2
• Mad-Catz C.T.R.L.R
• Razer Serval
• Mocute 050

*Not all Xbox One wireless controllers support Bluetooth. Older variants use a proprietary 2.4Ghz protocol and cannot be used with the Switch. See here for information on identifying the Bluetooth variant.

Requirements

• Hackable Nintendo Switch running at least version 0.14.2 of Atmosphère custom firmware. Other custom firmwares are not supported.
• Compatible Bluetooth controller

Installation

Download the latest release .zip and extract to the root of your SD card, allowing the folders to merge and overwriting any existing files. A console reboot is required in order for MissionControl to become active.

IMPORTANT: Atmosphère >= 0.16.1 is required to run the latest release of MissionControl. Using an older Atmosphère version will cause MissionControl to crash the system on boot. Users upgrading from version 0.1.0 of MissionControl are also advised to wipe their pairing database and re-pair controllers running the latest version. Failure to wipe the old entries may result in non-switch controllers being detected incorrectly.

Usage

Install MissionControl to your SD card and reboot the console.

MissionControl runs as a background process and makes use of the system's native UI to handle controllers. The controller pairing dialog can be accessed from the home screen via Controllers->Change Grip/Order. While sitting on this screen, place your controller in pairing mode (see below) and wait for it to connect to the console. Once paired, controllers will reconnect automatically when woken up. There is no need to re-pair them every time.

Controllers that successfully pair but haven't been supported yet will display with red buttons on the Controllers menu to indicate their controls are not being mapped. Please open an issue to request support for such controllers.

Most native features should just work (with the exception of things like firmware update). If you find something that's broken please create an issue.

Pairing controllers

The supported controllers each have their own methods to enter pairing/sync mode. Below are instructions on entering this mode for each supported type.

Nintendo Wii(U) Controllers Press the red sync button on the back of the controller. The controller LEDs will blink rapidly.

Sony Dualshock4/Dualsense Controllers Press and hold the PS + share buttons simultaneously until the lightbar starts blinking. When done correctly the blink pattern will resemble a heartbeat, otherwise it will blink periodically.

Microsoft Xbox One Controllers Press and hold the guide(X) button until the LED starts blinking. Then press and hold the small sync button on the back near the charging port until the LED starts blinking more rapidly. You should also ensure your controller firmware is up to date, as old firmwares were known to have flakey bluetooth.

Other Controllers Please refer to your controller's user manual for information on how to put it in sync mode. Note that many generic Bluetooth controllers can be started in one of several modes. Usually you want to choose something like HID, PC or Android mode for it to work correctly.

Planned/In-progress Features

Below is a list of features I am currently working on or would like to look into in the future, roughly in descending order of priority. Requests are welcome if you have an idea you think would make a useful feature.

• Rumble support
• Motion controls support
• Bluetooth LE support
• Per-controller configurations
  • Rumble on/off
  • Motion controls on/off
  • Identify as Pro Controller or Joycon
  • Set controller body/button colours
  • Invert analog stick axes
  • Analog stick deadzones
• Companion application
  • Pairing database management
    • View paired controller information
    • Clear database
    • Export database to file
    • Import existing database from file
  • Controller management/diagnostics
    • Manage controller configurations
    • View raw HID report data
    • Test buttons/analog sticks
    • Dump SPI flash (official controllers only)
  • Controller discovery/pairing reimplementation
• Tesla overlay
• Keyboard and mouse support
• Gamecube mode (analog trigger support)
• USB wired controllers

Known Issues and Limitations

• Non-Switch controllers cannot be used to wake the system from sleep.
• Controllers using the Bluetooth LE (BLE) standard are currently not supported and will not connect to the system.
• Xbox One Elite V2 controllers cannot complete the pairing process with the console and in some cases cause it to crash. Without access to a physical controller there's not a lot I can do to debug the process.
• Xbox One, Wii/WiiU and (especially) some Dualshock v1 controllers can take some time to be detected and subsequently pair with the Console. Be patient and re-enter the sync mode of the controller several times if neccessary. Once synced, controllers should work as usual.
• Xbox One button layout was changed at some point in a firmware update. Please ensure your controller firmware is up to date if you have issues with incorrect button mappings.
• Reported controller battery levels may not be correct. I'm relying entirely on reverse engineering notes found on the internet for these. In many cases I don't own the controller and there is simply no information available, so these controllers will always show full battery. Any help in improving this is most welcome.
• Several users have reported knockoff WiiU controllers that cannot be detected by the console during Bluetooth discovery. Unfortunately I think they're using an incompatible Bluetooth chipset.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does this run on <insert CFW here>? No. MissionControl will only run under Atmosphère. This is not an attempt to lock users of other cfw out, Atmosphere is simply the only one (currently) providing the extensions neccessary to MITM Bluetooth communications that make this sysmodule possible.

Will using this get me banned from online? Currently there haven't been any confirmed cases of bans as a result of running MissionControl. That said, running any unofficial software under CFW will always carry a non-zero risk of ban, and Nintendo could change their ban criteria at any point. While this should be relatively safe, it would certainly be possible to detect that you had connected foreign controllers to the console if they were interested in doing do. Use at your own discretion.

Does this support USB controllers? No. MissionControl is Bluetooth-only for now.

Does this work with sys-con installed? Yes, the two can be run simultaneously without stepping on each others toes.

My console is crashing on boot because of this sysmodule. What can I do? If you're seeing crashes on boot with title ID 010000000000bd00, it is likely either you have updated recently to a new Atmosphere release and an update to MissionControl is required, or you are running an old version of Atmosphere which is not compatible with the latest version of MissionControl.

How can I use this with multiple sysNAND/emuMMC launch configs? Pairing controllers across multiple unique HOS installations requires multiple pairing databases and is essentially the same as pairing with two different consoles. The only exception being the case where you paired the controller(s) prior to making sysNAND copies. For now you will have to re-pair your controllers when switching back and forth. In the future I hope to include an option to load/store the database on the SD card to avoid this issue.

My Xbox One Controller buttons are mapped incorrectly. Can you fix it? You didn't read the Known Issues and Limitations section, did you? You need to update your controller firmware to the latest version. This can be done on Windows using the Xbox Accessories app. You can also do this on the Xbox itself.

Can you add support for PS3 controllers? It's on my list of things to look into. The pairing process is non-standard and may require modifications to the bluetooth driver. If it can be done non-destructively I will add support eventually. Having looked into this a bit, it appears it's going to be a lot of work given the constraints of HOS (if it can even be done without breaking support for other Bluetooth controllers). I won't rule out a solution in the future, but this is not high priority for me right now. Sorry DS3 owners.

Can you add support for Xbox 360 controllers? No. These don't use Bluetooth. Try sys-con with a wireless USB adapter.

Can you add support for wake from sleep? Probably not. As far as I know, wake from sleep involves a controller sending a special control command to the Switch Bluetooth hardware. There is no way to make a non-switch controller send the command recognised by the Switch without modifying its hardware/firmware.

Can you add bluetooth audio support? No. The bluetooth module on the switch only implements a small set of services required to make hid controllers work. Of this small set of services, only a handful of high-level functions are exposed to the rest of the system. Adding audio support would require implementing the services neccessary for audio transport, for which any sane person would require an open-source re-implementation of the bluetooth module in order to have access the low-level functions required to pull it off.

How it works

MissionControl works by Man-In-The-Middling the bluetooth system module and intercepting its initialisation IPC commands and system events, and translating incoming/outgoing data to convince the Switch that it's communicating with an official Pro Controller.

To achieve this, the btdrv-mitm module obtains the handles to bluetooth system events and shared memory when the system attempts to initialise them over IPC via the btm and hid modules. It then creates its own secondary versions of these and passes their handles on instead of the original. This allows modifications to be made to any data buffers before notifying (or not) the system. Additionally, the WriteHidData IPC command is intercepted to translate or drop outgoing requests to the controller. In the case of the latter, fake responses can be written directly to the buffer in shared memory.

Intercepting initialisation IPC commands also allows homebrew to properly make use of the bluetooth service. Normally, calling any of the IPC commands that would initialise or finalise system events would either crash the console, or invalidate the event handles held by system processes. With btdrv-mitm we are able to hand out alternative event handles when homebrew attempts to initialise an interface, and redirect the real system events to those instead of the events held by system processes.

IPS patches to the bluetooth module are provided to (re)enable the passing of abitrary pincodes when Bluetooth legacy pairing is used (Nintendo hardcodes a value of '0000', ignoring IPC arguments). This enables Wii(U) devices to be paired with the console.

The btm service is now also MITM'd, allowing for faking controller names on the fly while retaining the original names in the pairing database.

Building from source

First, clone the repository to your local machine and switch to the newly cloned directory

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/ndeadly/MissionControl.git
cd MissionControl

MissionControl currently uses a custom fork of libnx that adds Bluetooth service wrappers and type definitions. This needs to be built and installed first

cd libnx
make && make install

Next build Atmosphere-libs

cd ../Atmosphere-libs
make

Finally, build and package the distribution .zip. This will build bluetooth-mitm and package it up with bluetooth exefs patches.

cd ..
make dist

The resulting package can be installed as described above.

Credits

• switchbrew for the extensive documention of the Switch OS.
• devkitPro for the homebrew compiler toolchain.
• SciresM for his dedicated work on the Atmosphère project, libstratosphere and general helpfulness with all things Switch related.
• misson20000 for his handy debug monitor Twili and IPC logger Ilia
• dekuNukem, CTCaer, shinyquagsire23 and others for their work in reversing and documenting the switch controller communication protocol.
• friedkeenan for helping to test Wii extension controller support.
• Everyone else over at the ReSwitched discord server who helped answering technical questions.

Support

If you like this project, please consider supporting me to continue its development :)