Joy-Con Toolkit Switch

Joy-Con Toolkit
General
Author	CTCaer
Type	PC Utilities
Version	5.2.0
License	MIT License
Last Updated	2018/04/24
Links
Download
Website
Source

An easy tool that allows you to modify the Joy-Con colors your Switch system associates with your Joy-Cons and Pro Controllers.

The change is carried in the controllers software and shows on any Switch, ideal for controllers with aftermarket shells.

This tool was inspired by Shinyquagsire23's HID-Joy-Con-Whispering.

Note: Before you do anything, make a backup of your SPI flash. If you have done one, change the name a little bit to avoid overwrites and keep it for life.

Features

• Change colors of your Joy-Con and Pro Controller (plus left/right grip).
• Use the IR stream or capture and save photos.
• Use the NFC to check type and UID.
• Save your custom colors for future use.
• Backup your SPI flash.
• Edit user calibration for analog sticks.
• View S/N, FW Version, MAC address and Battery.
• Restore from a backup. Restore colors, S/N, Calibration, Full restore.
• Change S/N.
  • If you didn't do a valid backup and you lost your S/N, you are the only responsible.
  • If for whatever reason you lost it, check the plastic slivers that your Joy-Con were wrapped inside the retail box.
• Debug - Send Custom Commands. Send Vibrations, set player and HOME leds, etc, and see their reply.
  • Only for users that know what they are doing. You are the only responsible.
• Full test controls. Test buttons, analog sticks, motion controls, complete with calibration.
• Temperature reading. Check the current Joy-Con or the ambient temperature after letting it for some minutes.
• Easter Egg: Play 2 Mario themes through Joy-Con HD Rumble.
• Capture traffic between the controller and the PC into a log file.
• Led indicator:
  • Player Led behavior: Solid - Waiting for command; 4th Led Blinking - Doing stuff.
  • Additionally for Right JC and Pro HOME led: Heartbeat - Waiting for command; Breathing - Doing stuff.
• For more, check Changelog.

User guide

Prerequisites

Install only if needed:

• Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 (x86) Redistributable (All Windows versions).
• Microsoft .NET Framework 4.7.1 (for Windows lower than Windows 10).
• Bluetooth 2.0 and up (USB adapter or built-in).
• Microsoft Bluetooth stack/drivers or Toshiba Bluetooth stack/drivers. Other stacks are not supported by the controllers for unlocked feature usage.
• Windows 7 and up (host or VM guest).

How to use

Press the sync button to connect your Joy-Con to your computer. Wait until it starts searching, then open your computer's Bluetooth menu. You should see the Joy-Con pop up. If done correctly, it should automatically show up in the Joy-Con Toolkit program.

In the Joy-Con Toolkit, you'll see an option to "backup SPI," which will create a default state you can revert to. Please make a backup of your SPI flash before doing anything, in case anything goes wrong (may take ~10 mins).

You can now customize the colors by changing the "body colour" or the "buttons colour", press "write colours" to save. Then slot your Joy-Cons back onto your Switch, it should register them as whatever colours you assigned.

▼ Example illustration by soaresden 

Troubleshooting

The colors do not show up in Switch:

Switch 2.3.0 and older:

• Clear the controller cache by doing the following:
• Go to System Settings->Controllers and Sensors and do Disconnect all controllers. Restart your Switch and then pair.

Switch 3.0.0, 4.0.0 and newer:

• Just pair the controller with Switch.

Media

Change Nintendo Switch Joy-Con Colors Through Software! (Spawn Wave)

Screenshots

Joy-Con Toolkit

On the Switch

Changelog

v5.2.0 2018/04/12

• Near Infrared Camera:
  • Add live configuration when streaming.
  • Add many new IR settings (de-noise, led intensity, strobe lights, etc).
  • Change custom IR sensor registers.
  • Auto exposure mode (This is done manually, so it's experimental. Expect bugs)..
• User Calibration Editing:
  • Add Accelerometer/Gyroscope user calibration editing.
  • Add Stick device factory parameters editing. Helps when you have drifting issues, that can't be fixed by calibrating the stick. Just raise the deadzone value.
• Debugging / Troubleshooting:
  • Add 2 command line options:
    • -d: Dumps the communication packets into a log text file.
    • -f: Forces the app to not check for connection again. Helps in some cases that the app reports that the controller was disconnected.
• Others:
  • Organize the IR/Playground/Calibration panels a little better.
  • Many bugfixes and optimizations.

v5.0.0 2018/03/30

• Near Infrared Camera:
  • Look through the IR camera of the Joy-Con (R) controller.
    • Capture and save a photo or Stream video.
    • Fully configurable: Resolution, IR leds, Exposure time, Digital gain and External IR light filter (filters lighters/candles, sunlight, etc.)
    • 4 color filters to choose: Grey, Ironbow (pseudothermal color), Night vision (green) and Red.
• NFC:
  • Check simple info (type and uid) from NFC tags, credit cards and nfc-enabled phones via the Pro controller and Joy-Con (R).
• Edit analog sticks user calibration:
  • Edit the analog stick's X/Y ranges and centers. All controllers are supported.
  • This can correct accidental walking and slow running when the switch's calibration does not let you calibrate them correctly.
• Updated color edit:
  • You can now edit the Grips color for the Pro controller individually along the body and buttons color.
  • (Viewing the grips color is only supported in Switch update 5.0.0+).
  • The controller preview is now optimized and way faster.
• Other:
  • Added traffic logging by using the command line argument -d.
  • Made it fully non-blocking. Now the app will mostly not hang when the controller is disconnected when it does an operation.
  • Countless bugfixes and optimizations.

v3.0.2 2019/03/01

• Hotfixes:
  • Implemented mitigations for Pro Controller erratic/random behavior of x3F input reports.
  • Now certain read/write SPI commands will be more difficult to be skipped.
  • Added error checking for read/write SPI commands and user inform messages when these happen.
  • Some bugfixes/protections.

v3.0.1 2018/02/24

• Removed redundant testing code that broke compilation.

v3.0.0 2018/02/24

• Joy-Con Color Picker:
  • Beautiful dark design.
  • Adobe style color picker, with different color spectrums for each mode and arrows/mouse wheel support.
  • HEX input:
  • Eyedropper. Pick any color on your screen.
  • Choose both Body and Buttons colors in one screen.
  • Presets that you can name. Save up to 16 retail custom colors and 32 user custom colors.
  • Legacy support. It will automatically load your old saved presets and save them to the new config format.
  • New config xml layout, which has the color in HEX RGB along with the preset name.
  • Modular support. With some small changes it can be reworked to fit your project.
• High DPI scaling support:
  • Every control is now reworked so it will scale with your Windows DPI setting.
  • Forget any blurred look or out of bounds text.
• Smoother controller preview image:
  • The preview box that you can check how the controller will look like with the new colors is now reworked.
  • It now produces nice HQ images with smooth color transition and no more color spots.
• Other:
  • Many bugfixes and code refactoring!.
  • Fully support Windows 10 (Fall Creators Update).
• Important - You will now need the following for the app to work:
  • Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 (x86) Redistributable (All Windows versions).
  • Microsoft .NET Framework 4.7.1 (for Windows lower than Windows 10).
  • And as always, check here for the executable binaries.

v2.5.1 2017/11/01

• Full featured controls, motion sensor and calibration readings. Check your user or factory calibrations, test buttons, stick and motion sensors raw and calibrated readings.
• Temperature readings. Check your current Joy-Con temperature or the ambient temperature (by leaving it alone for some minutes).
• Added Battery Voltage reading.
• Added Pro controller buttons color support.
• Small redesign of some parts for better UX.
• Added Refresh and Disconnect buttons.
• You can now change on the fly different Joy-Con without the need to close the toolkit for refreshing info, or just refresh temperature/battery/etc. *Additionally "Disconnect" also reboots your device.
• Added Red Joy-Con body and buttons colors. Thanks to SciresM. If you want to keep your custom colors, add them manually: 225,15,0 | 40,10,10.
• Added New Easter Egg. Happy SMO release.
• Countless bugfixes and improvements.

v2.0 2017/08/21

• Full featured bnvib and jcvib HD Rumble Player. Also added EQ and support to Loop .bnvib format.
• Full Debug reply report. You can now check buttons/joystick/battery from the received packet.
• Added S/N protection mechanism. With the first S/N change, it now saves it in an unused area inside your SPI. If you already changed it, it will not trigger. *You need to restore it from a backup and then change it back.
• Added option to restore it from inside the SPI. Needs the above. Otherwise you can still restore it from your SPI backup.
• Battery percent based on regulated voltage reported from the device.
• Now Joy-Con (R) and Pro Controller utilize the HOME led. Heartbeat = Standby/Awaiting command, Breathing = Doing stuff.

v1.5.2 2017/08/11

• Fixed a major compatibility issue with newest shipments of Joy-Con. Previously we were expecting 2 FW Ram Patches inside the SPI dump. New Joy-Con have only 1 like Pro. This was triggering a "Backup is corrupt" message, even though the backup was perfect.
• Revambed the debug and made it like a normal feature a little bit. Added sent subcmd/arguments windows and you can now send 25byte subcmd arguments (this fixes the HOME LED).
• Some bugfixes.

Credits

References:

• Official forum and Binary releases.
• Protocol reverse engineering.
• Protocol and hidapi usage in Linux.
• In windows.

Special thanks:

• Everyone at Nintendo_Switch_Reverse_Engineering: General BT protocol usage.
• shinyquagsire23: General hidapi and BT protocol usage.
• shuffle2: General hidapi usage for windows.
• Ceri: Neon-Yellow hex color values.
• Cosmic_Link: Splatoon Pink and Green Joy-Con dumps and colors.
• SciresM: Red Joy-Con color values.
• KapuDaKoopa, Sam S, SomeGamer, Jackson Ferrell, Starwort, trainboy2019, Hario337, Ep8Script,Lixmo: Testing.
• Spawn Wave, Thomhack: For the video tutorials.

External links

• GitHub - https://github.com/CTCaer/jc_toolkit
• GBAtemp - https://gbatemp.net/threads/tool-joy-con-toolkit.478560/