Hardware Nfc third party joycon add

[NekoPrincess101]

Is it possible to add NFC to third party joycons? I am seeing a lot of them on Mercari and people are able to add NFC for an extra charge. Is this at all possible and how do they do that?

 

[gamer765]

1. Buy a third party controller
2. Open it up and document its internals by taking pictures
3. Get the Mercari service to add NFC
4. Open up the modded control, check what's different

 

[impeeza]

Is it possible to add NFC to third party joycons? I am seeing a lot of them on Mercari and people are able to add NFC for an extra charge. Is this at all possible and how do they do that?

no after they leaved factory, you can:

Use Emuiibo if your console is modded

Buy a Pixl.js Device (allmiibo), which is a amiibo emulator, you can hold infinite amiibos on the device, on amazon or aliexpress

look for a oled one

 

[NekoPrincess101]

1. Buy a third party controller
2. Open it up and document its internals by taking pictures
3. Get the Mercari service to add NFC
4. Open up the modded control, check what's different

I feel like they take the nfc of a legit but broken joycon and then shell swap?

Post automatically merged: Dec 2, 2024

no after they leaved factory, you can:

Use Emuiibo if your console is modded

Buy a Pixl.js Device (allmiibo), which is a amiibo emulator, you can hold infinite amiibos on the device, on amazon or aliexpress

look for a oled one

Are you talking about NFC cards and emulators? I'm talking about the actual controllers having the NFC reader as third party ones usually don't have NFC reading functionality but on Mercari someone says they can add it for a charge.

 

[impeeza]

I feel like they take the nfc of a legit but broken joycon and then shell swap?

Nfc function IS NOT A SEPARATE device from the Joy Con main board. So you can not take the "NFC" from a joy con and out it in another. As you stated you only can change the case for a original joy con. But if you original joy con is broken no avail.

Mercari someone says they can add it for a charge.

No can do unless the hardware is in there (or only missing some parts) and is disabled by software. The NFC module sold be able to talk with the existing microcontroller on the device and the microcontroller's firmware should be able to use it.

 

[randy_w]

It is possible, but not without swapping in a real joycon's pcb.

I've taken apart many third party/fake joycon/pro controllers, they all work by emulating real joycon's bt communication protocol with some custom chip. Most of them just use chip on board bonding (black blob of epoxy) and you can't even identify the mcu. Even if they use regular qfn/qfp mcu chips it's always some custom part. To add nfc function you need to reverse engineer the custom chip and add nfc protocols to it, reprogram it (i think most of these fake controllers use otp/maskrom that aren't even reprogrammable) then add the nfc antenna and related circuits.

Now think about it, if it's as easy as adding an nfc antenna to enable nfc function on fake joycons, why wouldn't they do it from factory and sell them as real joycons? An nfc antenna is just a copper coil costs cents at most. Obviously they only implemented basic functions for joycon to work in most games (gyroscope, button and joystick) and less used fuctions (ir camera, hd ruble and nfc) are left out to cut down development/manufacturing cost

 

[NekoPrincess101]

Nfc function IS NOT A SEPARATE device from the Joy Con main board. So you can not take the "NFC" from a joy con and out it in another. As you stated you only can change the case for a original joy con. But if you original joy con is broken no avail.



No can do unless the hardware is in there (or only missing some parts) and is disabled by software. The NFC module sold be able to talk with the existing microcontroller on the device and the microcontroller's firmware should be able to use it.

Ok so they would need to use a healthy board for it. I feel like maybe they buy broken legit joycons (and maybe) with drift, fix the drift or use the third party sticks, and then shell swap with the fake joycon shell.

I'm not that tech savvy to understand your second response sorry

Post automatically merged: Dec 3, 2024

It is possible, but not without swapping in a real joycon's pcb.

I've taken apart many third party/fake joycon/pro controllers, they all work by emulating real joycon's bt communication protocol with some custom chip. Most of them just use chip on board bonding (black blob of epoxy) and you can't even identify the mcu. Even if they use regular qfn/qfp mcu chips it's always some custom part. To add nfc function you need to reverse engineer the custom chip and add nfc protocols to it, reprogram it (i think most of these fake controllers use otp/maskrom that aren't even reprogrammable) then add the nfc antenna and related circuits.

Now think about it, if it's as easy as adding an nfc antenna to enable nfc function on fake joycons, why wouldn't they do it from factory and sell them as real joycons? An nfc antenna is just a copper coil costs cents at most. Obviously they only implemented basic functions for joycon to work in most games (gyroscope, button and joystick) and less used fuctions (ir camera, hd ruble and nfc) are left out to cut down development/manufacturing cost

Ok so they need a legit joycon board. Thought so, can't swap over just the NFC chip I think that's on the real board.

Don't understand any of that second response sorry haha

I have some third party controllers (not joycons) that have NFC so I wonder why the joycons can't be replicated to have NFC...