Hardware Hacking Fake RCMloader dongles in the wild

[The Real Jdbye]

Just got a RCMloader V5 from AliExpress not long ago. It looks a bit different than the old one, the plastic is very shiny and it has a red light when plugged in instead of white.

The quality of the logo printing is very poor, it's noticeably lighter than the old one (it weighs nothing), and the plastic feels cheap. The plastic is also very thin, you can see the charging light shine through the sides.

It won't connect to PC to update payloads, and the payload can't be switched with the button (it just lights up blue for as long as the button is held), it's stuck with whatever version of Hekate they preloaded onto it.

Looking at the reviews on AliExpress, many others also complain that it won't connect to PC.

Seems pretty obvious from the poor quality, and the fact that the button does nothing but light up a blue LED that this is a fake.
Sadly it's too late to open a dispute and I don't expect the seller will be helpful.

So beware when buying these. I don't know where to get legit ones now, and can't even use this one since the payload can't be updated. My cousin still needs a new dongle as the old one is completely dead, so if anyone has any advice on alternate dongles or legit sources please let me know.

Edit: Can you spot the fake?

 

[thesjaakspoiler]

If you have an Android phone, just use Rekado.

 

[binkinator]

Just got a RCMloader V5 from AliExpress not long ago. It looks a bit different than the old one, the plastic is very shiny and it has a red light when plugged in instead of white.

The quality of the logo printing is very poor, it's noticeably lighter than the old one (it weighs nothing), and the plastic feels cheap. The plastic is also very thin, you can see the charging light shine through the sides.

It won't connect to PC to update payloads, and the payload can't be switched with the button (it just lights up blue for as long as the button is held), it's stuck with whatever version of Hekate they preloaded onto it.

Looking at the reviews on AliExpress, many others also complain that it won't connect to PC.

Seems pretty obvious from the poor quality, and the fact that the button does nothing but light up a blue LED that this is a fake.
Sadly it's too late to open a dispute and I don't expect the seller will be helpful.

So beware when buying these. I don't know where to get legit ones now, and can't even use this one since the payload can't be updated. My cousin still needs a new dongle as the old one is completely dead, so if anyone has any advice on alternate dongles or legit sources please let me know.

Edit: Can you spot the fake?
View attachment 332297

Spoiler: I think the fake is

the one on the right
(but that’s just because of your detailed description)

 

[deathblade200]

not sure why people don't just use their phone, tablet, or computer (I use all 3). instead people rather buy an overpriced loader and hope it doesn't fail on them anytime soon.

 

[Hayato213]

Just got a RCMloader V5 from AliExpress not long ago. It looks a bit different than the old one, the plastic is very shiny and it has a red light when plugged in instead of white.

The quality of the logo printing is very poor, it's noticeably lighter than the old one (it weighs nothing), and the plastic feels cheap. The plastic is also very thin, you can see the charging light shine through the sides.

It won't connect to PC to update payloads, and the payload can't be switched with the button (it just lights up blue for as long as the button is held), it's stuck with whatever version of Hekate they preloaded onto it.

Looking at the reviews on AliExpress, many others also complain that it won't connect to PC.

Seems pretty obvious from the poor quality, and the fact that the button does nothing but light up a blue LED that this is a fake.
Sadly it's too late to open a dispute and I don't expect the seller will be helpful.

So beware when buying these. I don't know where to get legit ones now, and can't even use this one since the payload can't be updated. My cousin still needs a new dongle as the old one is completely dead, so if anyone has any advice on alternate dongles or legit sources please let me know.

Edit: Can you spot the fake?
View attachment 332297

Look different than the one I got in term of how the text is.

 

[TomSwitch]

not sure why people don't just use their phone, tablet, or computer (I use all 3). instead people rather buy an overpriced loader and hope it doesn't fail on them anytime soon.

Many people do, but some people found that RCM loader is the right solution for them and that is also not that surprising. To say it's overpriced you have to know how much was paid. To buy two means that person was a happy customer at least with the first one, or maybe first one don't work and buy another just to try again, which means the price must be not high to the person.

 

[randy_w]

Oh well it's not something complicated like sx/hwfly modchips, any microcontroller that has usb host mode can be used to inject the payload. Matter of fact, most listings you see on amazon/ebay/aliexpress are clones of the original rcmloader made by xkit.

Pretty sure they got rid of the spi flash chip in the new one to further cut down cost, and the payload is baked into the microcontroller's internal flash storage. If you can pry it open and upload some photos of the circuit board, maybe I can figure out a way to flash them with matty's fusee suite which loads hekate from sd card instead of the injector itself. Pretty sure it's the same old samd21 chip inside..

 

[deathblade200]

Many people do, but some people found that RCM loader is the right solution for them and that is also not that surprising. To say it's overpriced you have to know how much was paid. To buy two means that person was a happy customer at least with the first one, or maybe first one don't work and buy another just to try again, which means the price must be not high to the person.

it is overpriced regardless of how you look at it when you can just buy a cord instead and use multiple other devices with a much lower fail chance

 

[hippy dave]

I don't know where to get legit ones now, and can't even use this one since the payload can't be updated.

Hekate will automatically load an updated version of itself from the SD card if found - off the top of my head, I think it's at bootloader/update.bin - just download the latest Hekate and rename it to update.bin in the bootloader folder. Then when you push whatever version is on this dongle, it will load and start the new version.

 

[Dust2dust]

Now I've seen everything! A chinese knockoff of a cheap chinese gadget!

 

[deathblade200]

Hekate will automatically load an updated version of itself from the SD card if found - off the top of my head, I think it's at bootloader/update.bin - just download the latest Hekate and rename it to update.bin in the bootloader folder. Then when you push whatever version is on this dongle, it will load and start the new version.

you don't have to rename anything (I never do) just drag and drop the bootloader folder and regardless what version you inject it will use the newest version on the sd

 

[hippy dave]

you don't have to rename anything (I never do) just drag and drop the bootloader folder and regardless what version you inject it will use the newest version on the sd

Oh you're right, update.bin is supplied in the Hekate download.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

If you have an Android phone, just use Rekado.

It's for my cousin, who's an iPhone user. I already have a perfectly working one.

not sure why people don't just use their phone, tablet, or computer (I use all 3). instead people rather buy an overpriced loader and hope it doesn't fail on them anytime soon.

I don't think $15 is overpriced (though they used to be $10), it's worth it for the convenience. The only device my cousin has that could be used is a laptop which he keeps at home, so he wouldn't be able to boot into CFW when away from home, hardly an ideal solution.

Oh well it's not something complicated like sx/hwfly modchips, any microcontroller that has usb host mode can be used to inject the payload. Matter of fact, most listings you see on amazon/ebay/aliexpress are clones of the original rcmloader made by xkit.

Pretty sure they got rid of the spi flash chip in the new one to further cut down cost, and the payload is baked into the microcontroller's internal flash storage. If you can pry it open and upload some photos of the circuit board, maybe I can figure out a way to flash them with matty's fusee suite which loads hekate from sd card instead of the injector itself. Pretty sure it's the same old samd21 chip inside..

I considered opening it to see if I could at least swap over the battery to the old, dead one in the hopes it would revive it, don't see any obvious ways to open it though and I wouldn't wanna risk puncturing the battery by accident by shoving metal tools in there. There isn't even a gap big enough to stick a plastic pick into.

Hekate will automatically load an updated version of itself from the SD card if found - off the top of my head, I think it's at bootloader/update.bin - just download the latest Hekate and rename it to update.bin in the bootloader folder. Then when you push whatever version is on this dongle, it will load and start the new version.

Yes, I found this out earlier. That might be just the thing I need to at least make this thing usable. Thanks.

 

[flowlapache]

I would guess the fake is on the right because the poor print...
But coul you avoid other people to buy same thing by saying the seller to avoid?

 

[The Real Jdbye]

I would guess the fake is on the right because the poor print...
But coul you avoid other people to buy same thing by saying the seller to avoid?

Multiple sellers on there are selling the same thing. This one was from Shop(bunch of numbers), but I see similar complaints in the reviews on other listings so maybe they are all fake.

 

[romanaOne]

Both of my used Switches came with dongles (SXOS and RCMLoader) and I use dragonboot to chainload /atmosphere/reboot_payload.bin (which is just renamed latest version of hekate.bin). I like the ASCII art octopus at startup. Also cool that you never have to modify the contents of the dongles as all it does is launch something else. That's good because I forgot how. I think there was some program (SX Packer?) to convert a RCMLoader's payload for use with SXOS dongle.

I really like the dongles as opposed to Android or running the PC application. I don't even like Android--it's the most ghetto, corporate-bitch linux ever--and I don't want to bring a PC wherever I take the switch. But really, it doesn't matter that much how to reboot as I only ever shut down when there's an upgrade to firm, hek, atm.

 

[Maxeatedcheese]

I actually just bought one of these fakes which is surprising because i was watching out really closely, I can answer any questions you guys have about them. The one I bought was on ebay and it came with Hekate 5.7.2 (surprisingly recent considering these are probably just sitting in a warehouse) wondering if I could somehow take it apart and flash a new payload onto it but thats probably unlikely.

 

[BaamAlex]

Can you spot the fake?

I would say the right one is fake. It looks cheaper (dunno how to describe it) and the + button seems not clickable. And the joycon print is not present on the real one iirc.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

I would say the right one is fake. It looks cheaper (dunno how to describe it) and the + button seems not clickable. And the joycon print is not present on the real one iirc.

Oh, it's clickable. Just doesn't do anything except light up the blue LED. Which was a pretty big tipoff for me to think that it's actually a fake, and not just the RCMloader company cheaping out, because why would they keep the button if it serves no purpose?

The JoyCon print isn't on mine, but it seems to be on later units. My cousin's previous one had the JoyCon print, a red jig instead of gray like mine, but otherwise looked and functioned identically.

I actually just bought one of these fakes which is surprising because i was watching out really closely, I can answer any questions you guys have about them. The one I bought was on ebay and it came with Hekate 5.7.2 (surprisingly recent considering these are probably just sitting in a warehouse) wondering if I could somehow take it apart and flash a new payload onto it but thats probably unlikely.

On the upside, the version of Hekate is recent enough that it supports the update.bin loading feature, so that Hekate can be updated. Otherwise this thing would be pretty useless. Still feels like a scam, but at least my cousin's not stuck without a dongle.

 

[impeeza]

not sure why people don't just use their phone, tablet, or computer (I use all 3). instead people rather buy an overpriced loader and hope it doesn't fail on them anytime soon.

none of mine was overpriced, one cost 5 USD (fake "V5") and a original what I buy on 7 USD.

For me, my wife and my niece is a lot convenient have a little gadget what fits on the switch case and don't get lost and no need to carry extra cables. and my niece isn't allowed to have a phone with her, so.

I just installed a internal gema chip to replace the dongle and never again use a external injection method.

All is about preferences.

Last Week see a Fake V5 on a local game shop and was hilarious don't even have a reset switch on the bottom, we opened and instead a 90° switch have a normal one so if you need to reset it you have to open the case