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

My favourite factor about handheld consoles is their versatility. If I wish to play my Switch 2, ROG Ally X, or Steam Deck OLED in my lounge 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 system it’s. Then, if I wish to take the hand-held on the go, I simply pop it out and recreation away wherever I need. Nevertheless, these days, I’ve modified issues up a bit and I have been doing lots 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 will contain unplugging the dock, transferring it, after which hooking it up once more. That creates lots of noise and will doubtlessly wake the sleeping child up. My gaming time is proscribed today, so making issues as plug-and-play as doable is important. So, in opposition to my higher judgment, I lately dove into the wild world of third-party Swap 2 docks, and to my shock, I appear to have discovered one that truly works so long as you are keen to place in a bit of additional work.

Say hiya to Jemdo’s Swap 2 HDMI Cable Dock

It is colourful and form of bizarre, however works surprisingly nicely

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 indirectly, stopping you from docking and charging the hand-held. Once I found this, I ended 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 a couple of 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 risk that third-party Swap 2 docks may endure from the identical issues as the unique Swap, nevertheless it’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 supposing the hand-held solely launched a couple of months in the past. I in the end landed on Jemdo’s Switch 2 HDMI Cable Dock as a result of it is comparatively inexpensive and, in comparison with Nintendo’s official Swap 2 dock, it is fairly modern — 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 a couple of variations of the colourful cable obtainable, 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 scenario much more complicated, the dock is offered on Amazon below a number of totally different model names that I’ve by no means heard of earlier than, together with this one known as Yigorn (some listings usually additionally promote a 60Hz/4K model, so be sure you choose the right one).

Be ready to obtain a really shady firmware file

The method is kinda of terrifying, nevertheless it works

With my analysis out of the way in which, I positioned my order and Jemdo’s Dock arrived a couple of days later, however to my shock, it did not embody an influence brick. To unravel 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 a little bit washed out, significantly 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 wherever. 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 equivalent 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 unravel the issue, Glitched downloaded firmware for an 8K model of one more totally 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 relatively terrifying-looking Chinese language .exe file from a random Google Drive. This system opened, and a crimson line appeared on my display screen that turned inexperienced after a couple of seconds. There isn’t any manner this might work, proper? The whole scenario 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 bother switching out of HDR when returning to the menu, however this might simply be a difficulty with my LG Ultragear 27GP950-B 4K monitor.

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