MissionControl

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

Features

• Supports all firmware versions
• Pair Bluetooth controllers natively via Change Grip/Order screen
• Native button remapping (firmware 10.0.0+)
• btdrv-mitm sysmodule 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)
• Nintendo WiiU Pro Controller
• Sony DualShock4 Controller
• Microsoft Xbox One S Controller*

*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 the latest Atmosphère CFW
• Compatible Bluetooth controller

Installation

Download the latest release .zip and extract to the root of your SD card. A console reboot is required in order for MissionControl to become active.

Note: Currently a modified boot2 is required to launch btdrv-mitm early enough to intercept Bluetooth initialisation. This will get overwritten any time Atmosphère is updated on SD, and will need to be replaced.

Usage

Install MissionControl to your SD card, reboot the console and then pair controllers as you normally would via the Controllers->Change Grip/Order screen. Once paired, controllers will reconnect automatically when woken up.

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.

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

Dualshock4 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.

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.

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.

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 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 a custom boot2, btdrv-mitm and package them up with bluetooth exefs patches.

cd ..
make dist

The resulting package can be installed as described above.

Planned Features

• Controller management application
• Rumble support
• Motion support
• Keyboard and mouse support

Frequently Asked Questions

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

Does this work with sys-con installed? Yes, I have had several reports from users that the two can be used together without issue.

Why have my official Joycon/Switch Pro Controllers stopped working over Bluetooth after installing MissionControl? It is possible to pair these controllers via the Joycon rails or a USB connection. In these cases a garbage hardware ID gets stored to the pairing database and the controller fails to be identified. This issue can be resolved by using the Disconnect Controllers option in System Settings with the controller disconnected from the system, and then re-pairing via bluetooth in the Change Grip/Order screen.

Why doesn't my 3rd-party knockoff controller work? Many 3rd-party controllers also use garbage hardware IDs, making them difficult to identify reliably. If a controller can't be identified, I ignore it, since I have no idea how to process the incoming data. I am currently trying to find an alternate way to identifying them without creating problems elsewhere.

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.

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 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.

Known Issues and limitations

• Non-Switch controllers cannot be used to wake the system from sleep.
• Controllers that haven't had their hardware ID whitelisted for identification will not be recognised as connected. This can include some official Switch controllers. They will however still pair with the console and store their details to the database. If you encounter such a controller, please create an issue requesting support.
• Wii(U) controllers can take a while to pair with the console. For some reason they are only detected at the end of a device discovery cycle. Be patient and re-press the sync button on the controller if neccessary.
• 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.
• Games with motion controls experience a drift on non-switch controllers when motion controls are enabled. I will fix this in a future release. For now most games should allow you to disable motion controls as a workaround.

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.