The "black bar" is an IR thing, sort of like on wii remotes. I think 1 2 switch uses it (never played it but thats' what I've read)
as for home button lights, I didn't even know that was a thing that existed, I turn all that notification crap off when possible so I never really see it on Wii U and never on Switch.
Yup, it's used for the sandwich eating minigame. Which means you need two sets in order to play it multiplayer which kind of sucks. All the other minigames can be played with one set.
I'm just curious that it should be doing something and so far I never seen it do anything. Is just like the home button on the wii u game pad. I know what it does there, usually lights up when the system gets a notification. Someone in your friend list is online, or when switch has standby mode on and gets the quick menu updated. I had the switch for so long and wondered what could it be for.
Another thing I don't know is the little black bar on the right joycon, it looks like the sensor bar on the game pad you would use for tv remote. Makes me think it was possible to control your tv or cable box too, but I haven't found anything about this. Just was curious if others have ideas maybe though the hack knowledge people gain or something.
I actually didn't even know there was a light there until I set it up in Steam once they added official Pro Controller support. So I'm gonna have to say no.
I'm sure they have plans to use it for something, they just haven't yet. Maybe when they launch their paid online service later it will tie into the online features. I don't want it flashing every time there's a news post though, that would be annoying and pointless IMO. I hated that on the Wii U and the standby notifications also drain the battery quickly.
But flashing if a friend invites you to a game (hoping this will be a thing) would be nice, I don't understand why Nintendo hasn't thought of adding a system wide game invite feature. It's extremely useful in Steam but on the Switch where you don't even have any way to communicate with friends from the Switch itself a little thing like that would make all the difference and without violating Nintendo's "think of the children, always" policy. Better still if it works in sleep mode (for wired JoyCons at least) so that whatever you might happen to be doing at that moment, as long as the Switch is visible you'll know when someone invites you so you can
ignore them respond. Friends can message you elsewhere, but for randos you add from GBAtemp and such, there isn't really a good way to let them know "hey, I'm playing this game now if you wanna join", you just have to be lucky and both be playing the same game in the same game mode at the same time, or you have to watch the friend list to see what people are playing and join them, but that doesn't show what game mode they are in or if they're even playing online so you have to go in game just to check if they're joinable.
I think this is a big oversight of Nintendo, and it would help to make the friend code system a little more bearable. As long as it's free I can't really complain but when they start charging for it I expect some minimum of functionality. Though I'm paying for it either way, it's relatively cheap and Splatoon 2 is almost useless without online.
