I attempted this sketchy Swap 2 dock so that you don’t must

My favourite factor about handheld consoles is their versatility. If I need to play my Switch 2, ROG Ally X, or Steam Deck OLED in my front room on my TV, I simply slide the moveable into Nintendo’s official dock or hook it as much as my Jsaux 6-in-1 Multifunctional Docking Station, relying on what gadget it’s. Then, if I need to take the hand held on the go, I simply pop it out and sport away wherever I need. Nevertheless, recently, I’ve modified issues up a bit and I have been doing a variety of my Swap 2 gaming in my basement workplace on my pc monitor whereas my son is sleeping within the night.

Certain, I may transfer the Swap 2’s official dock downstairs, however that may contain unplugging the dock, transferring it, after which hooking it up once more. That creates a variety of noise and will doubtlessly wake the sleeping child up. My gaming time is restricted lately, so making issues as plug-and-play as attainable is crucial. So, towards my higher judgment, I just lately dove into the wild world of third-party Swap 2 docks, and to my shock, I appear to have discovered one that really works so long as you are prepared to place in a bit of additional work.

Say howdy to Jemdo’s Swap 2 HDMI Cable Dock

It is colourful and sort of bizarre, however works surprisingly properly

Again within the OG Swap period, it was generally believed that third-party docks may doubtlessly brick your Swap or, on the very least, break the USB-C port ultimately, stopping you from docking and charging the hand held. Once I found this, I finished utilizing the Nyko dock I bought, and I did not delve again into the world of third-party docks till Genki’s supposedly safe Covert Dock launched just a few years later. It is all very technical, however the issue is reportedly tied to dock voltage issues, third-party dock PD controllers, and a few not very third-party pleasant encryption on Nintendo’s finish.

There is a chance that third-party Swap 2 docks may undergo from the identical issues as the unique Swap, but it surely’s nonetheless unclear proper now. What we do know for positive is Nintendo has deliberately damaged the Swap 2’s generic USB-C dock compatibility with a dedicated encryption chip in its handheld.

After doing a little bit of analysis on Swap 2 docks, there appear to be a few out there that claim to have already cracked Nintendo’s encryption code, even though the hand held solely launched just a few months in the past. I in the end landed on Jemdo’s Switch 2 HDMI Cable Dock as a result of it is comparatively reasonably priced and, in comparison with Nintendo’s official Swap 2 dock, it is fairly smooth — it is mainly simply an HDMI-to-USB-C cable. I’ve additionally by no means seen a USB-C cable that is orange and blue earlier than, so it caught my eye.

There appear to be just a few variations of the colourful cable accessible, together with a black one, the coloured iteration I purchased, and a dock-like dongle, however all of them appear to help 144Hz and HDMI 2.1 (in Canada, I needed to choose the $40 144Hz/HDMI 2.1 model particularly within the Amazon listing). Making the state of affairs much more complicated, the dock is bought on Amazon underneath a number of completely different model names that I’ve by no means heard of earlier than, together with this one known as Yigorn (some listings typically additionally promote a 60Hz/4K model, so ensure you choose the proper one).

Be ready to obtain a really shady firmware file

The method is kinda of terrifying, but it surely works

With my analysis out of the best way, I positioned my order and Jemdo’s Dock arrived just a few days later, however to my shock, it did not embody an influence brick. To resolve this subject, I dug up an older 60W iPad charger I had mendacity round and plugged it into the colourful Jemdo Dock after I set it up in my workplace (this is identical wattage because the official dock). Since I run a lot of the consoles in my workplace by an HDMI switcher, I slid the HDMI finish of the Jemdo Dock into the field, the USB-C facet into the Swap 2, and plugged within the iPad charger. To my shock, it really labored instantly, displaying Donkey Kong Bananza in all its glory on my monitor, however one thing felt barely off. Colours appeared just a little washed out, notably with video games that help HDR like Mario Kart World.

That is the place issues get a bit wild, so bear with me. I noticed feedback on Amazon and Reddit indicating that there is a firmware replace for the Jemdo Dock that fixes its HDR points, however I wasn’t capable of finding a hyperlink to it anyplace. After a fast Google search, I stumbled throughout this video from a comparatively small YouTube channel known as Glitched. Their video is targeted on a cable that appears an identical to the Jemdo Dock, however with Cabletime branding. I assumed that this was simply one other firm branding and promoting the identical Swap 2 dock given they encountered the identical subject. To resolve the issue, Glitched downloaded firmware for an 8K model of one more completely different model of cable from one other firm, and to their shock, it really labored on the Cabletime model.

At this level, I figured I did not have a lot to lose, so I went forward and adopted the link in Glitched’s bio and downloaded a slightly terrifying-looking Chinese language .exe file from a random Google Drive. This system opened, and a purple line appeared on my display that turned inexperienced after just a few seconds. There isn’t any means this might work, proper? The whole state of affairs is simply too bizarre. But once more, to my utter shock, HDR now seems on my show after I’m utilizing the Jemdo dock with the Swap 2, although the hand held seems to have hassle switching out of HDR when returning to the menu, however this might simply be a problem with my LG Ultragear 27GP950-B 4K monitor.

And in spite of everything that, I now have a working third-party Swap 2 dock that appears to run almost in addition to Nintendo’s official dock. It will get just a little scorching after just a few hours of use, however that is the one subject I’ve run into previously few days. Will it break my Swap 2 in some unspecified time in the future over the subsequent few weeks? I do not know, however I undoubtedly hope not.