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

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 transportable 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 wish to take the hand-held on the go, I simply pop it out and sport away wherever I need. Nevertheless, these days, I’ve modified issues up a bit and I have been doing a whole lot of my Swap 2 gaming in my basement workplace on my laptop monitor whereas my son is sleeping within the night.

Positive, I might transfer the Swap 2’s official dock downstairs, however that might contain unplugging the dock, shifting it, after which hooking it up once more. That creates a whole lot of noise and will doubtlessly wake the sleeping child up. My gaming time is proscribed lately, so making issues as plug-and-play as potential is crucial. So, towards 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 prepared to place in a bit of additional work.

Say hiya to Jemdo’s Swap 2 HDMI Cable Dock

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

Again within the OG Swap period, it was generally believed that third-party docks might doubtlessly brick your Swap or, on the very least, break the USB-C port indirectly, stopping you from docking and charging the hand-held. After 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 number 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 chance that third-party Swap 2 docks might undergo from the identical issues as the unique Swap, but it surely’s nonetheless unclear proper now. What we do know for certain 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 number of months in the past. I finally 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 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 a number 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 state of affairs much more complicated, the dock is offered on Amazon underneath a number of totally different model names that I’ve by no means heard of earlier than, together with this one referred to as Yigorn (some listings usually additionally promote a 60Hz/4K model, so ensure you choose the right 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 way in which, I positioned my order and Jemdo’s Dock arrived a number of days later, however to my shock, it did not embody an influence brick. To resolve this challenge, 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 many of the consoles in my workplace by way of an HDMI switcher, I slid the HDMI finish of the Jemdo Dock into the field, the USB-C aspect into the Swap 2, and plugged within the iPad charger. To my shock, it truly 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, 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 anyplace. After a fast Google search, I stumbled throughout this video from a comparatively small YouTube channel referred to as Glitched. Their video is targeted on a cable that appears similar 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 challenge. To resolve the issue, Glitched downloaded firmware for an 8K model of yet one more totally different model of cable from one other firm, and to their shock, it truly 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 moderately 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 number of seconds. There isn’t any method this might work, proper? All the 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 difficulty 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 a number of hours of use, however that is the one challenge I’ve run into previously few days. Will it break my Swap 2 sooner or later over the following few weeks? I do not know, however I positively hope not.