• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Spanish media claims Switch's joycons can charge the battery

Alienfan

Member
This is potentially great news if true, sure it might only be an extra 30mins of charge at launch, but in a few years time Nintendo or a third party might decide to release new JoyCons with even greater charging capacity, and suddenly the same Switch you bought at launch has 50% more battery.
 
I mean it makes sense. I don't think anybody should have been confused by this. Wouldn't make sense for the tablet to be capable of running out of battery while the actual controls attached to its sides still have battery. Makes more sense to draw power from those as well and extend its battery life.

This also basically kills the "joycon has 20h battery charge", since it will die if you use it on the handheld mode.
What?

The 20h battery life was always in terms of playing on TV or when the tablet's in kickstand mode. What made you think the tablet would die, and suddenly you'd still have the joycons at full charge?
 
i find this hard to believe since the Joycon batteries are around 500 mha vs ~ 4300 for the main unit.

What we do know about since december is that there's the posibility of the Joycon charging from the console if it's battery level is high enough and the controllers are running too low.

Is there a youtube link for the cradle video?

Well, it would make it more sense if whit joycons attached to the tablet the system has a total amount of roughly 5200 Mah battery. Joycons are supposed to last for 20 hours on a single charge and I assume in wireless mode. Once they are connected to the main unit the Bluetooth is turned off so the controllers might need very little juice and.. Well.. It would work as a single piece of hardware instead of three attached together.
In the end it doesn't change things much since we have an offcial rough stimate of battery life which is 3 to 6 hours depending on the game.

However, is important to point out that the Joycon connected to the device both in a wireless and physical way for communication. This is one of the features that make the device a Hybrid after all.

Related to the above "Table Top Mode" when not plugged is the most battery intensive portable use since both the Switch and the Joycon have the Bluetooth chipset on. The 3 hour Zelda battery life figure most have been when the Switch is in Handle Mode, so playing this game in Table Top Mode would minimize substantially the battery life.
 

L~A

Member
Pretty sure it's the console can "charge" the Joycons when connected, not the other way around. I doubt you can do much with the two Joycons batteries, except maybe get an extra bit of juice to go save before battery dies, but that's it.
 

nightside

Member
Well, it would make it more sense if whit joycons attached to the tablet the system has a total amount of roughly 5200 Mah battery. Joycons are supposed to last for 20 hours on a single charge and I assume in wireless mode. Once they are connected to the main unit the Bluetooth is turned off so the controllers might need very little juice and.. Well.. It would work as a single piece of hardware instead of three attached together.
 

Zedark

Member
This would be a great idea if it is optional. That is, if I want maximum handheld lifetime, I can toggle joy-con charging to system on and get an extra 30 minutes or so battery life. It should definitely be possible to disable it, though,so that I don't wind up with empty joy-cons if I remove them from the system.

That said, I don't want to trust a single article source on it without direct Nintendo official sources involved, so I'LL wait and see on this.
 
Could be a neat way of getting around the battery life issues, but you'd think they'd be shouting it from the high heavens if that were the case.
"Your game won't just last 3 hours... it can last 3 1/2 hours if you suck the power from the Joy-Cons too!" probably isn't going to impress many.

Unless somebody builds crazy alternate Joy-Cons with battery packs built in I guess, but then you really will need a backpack for the system.
 

Jackano

Member
I'm not sure how it works... But it sounds a fairly logical thing.
This is a closed circuit, and all 3 batteries are mutualized. It won't "charge" the main battery, but IMO the joy-cons batteries will be drained by the Switch unit alongside the joy-cons and vice-versa ?
 

Owensboro

Member
The battery capacity of both joy-cons combined isn't even 1/4 the consoles battery capacity seems pointless

I mean, the other option is the Switch just dies and your Joy-Cons still have charge, which is equally as useless. All in all, I think I prefer this over that even if it's just another 10-20 minutes minutes of battery life. It'll make situations where you're without power (long flights / car rides) last longer. You'd be charging it once you get to your destination anyway.

I guess you could get in the situation of the Switch being out of power, it sucking the power from the Joy-Cons, and then docking it and not being able to play because now the Joy-Cons need to charge, but at the same time I expect most people in that situation (enthusiasts who are playing all the time) to have either a second control option or the charging grip.

Hardly believable.
It's believable, and entirely possible, I just don't expect it (if true) to add much battery life. However, I'm totally with you on being skeptical.
 

wrowa

Member
The tablet charging the Joycons is obviously a good thing since it would be utterly ridiculous if you had to stop playing because the Joycons died when the handheld unit is still charged.

The other war around, though, sounds kinda shitty, since it means that you won't be able to just switch to TV mode when the handhelds runs out of charge. At least not if you don't own that charging grip.
 

YBdisk

Member
And then you won't be able to use the joycons detached.

So then you have to use the Joy-cons attached. Sorry.

I don't understand why some of you don't deem this useful. Just immediately turn off your switch when it's running low. Fuck those extra 15 minutes right?

Also I don't think Nintendo would let the console drain the Joy-cons without at least notifying the user.
 

Airan

Member
Wouldn't it be great if there was an fishing rod attachment that doubled as a rotational generator to charge the Switch as you try to reel that fat bass in.

Sega, get on it.
 

hemo memo

Gold Member
I don't why this was obvious to me from the start? Can someone help me here? Why in my mind that was always the case since the reveal?
 

Coffinhal

Member
The same dudes that are bashing Nintendo for this are the same who would bash them if this wasn't happening.

So much bad faith for an OPTION that INCREASES the BATTERY in handled mode UP TO 20%.
 
It would make sense to share the same voltage pool, but to CHARGE, one voltage would need to be higher than the other. Lithium Ion batteries keep their maximum voltage even at low charge, so to if one actually charges the other, it's not just shared voltage but some detect/amp circuitry build in for that - which I don't believe.

What's much more likely is that the handheld and joycon share the same voltage pool and if one is going low (like >5%) while the other still has a good charge, the thing with the better charge will keep the other going and drain first.
 
What is the negative here? I don't think it adds much but if you don't want to use the joycon extra power you can stop playing before it is used. So this is just extra. Nothing is lost here. Only gained extra battery life if you want to. There might even be option to shut down the feature. Not that its needed. And this might not be even true. I kinda want it to be though. Doesn't add much but still something without losing anything. But yeah, everything about the Switch must be negative, right?
 

KingV

Member
Sounds dumb, especially when it's the joycons charging an almost dead console.

The difference in battery capacity and power draw is ridiculous. Like charging a laptop with your phone. Maybe not though, who knows.

Maybe the real reason is to allow a way for an acccesory that is a big battery to exist. I.e. Basically a sleeve that the screen slides into that has a batter attached.

I can't imagine the joy coma can keep the main unit going for long.
 

Koren

Member
Sounds dumb, especially when it's the joycons charging an almost dead console.
Well, the good part is that 3rd party joycon can increase battery live, or better: slide a half-inch bar-like device between a joycon and the main unit, and you're able to add a battery to the switch.

Since the switch battery is non-removable, that's a possible solution for battery extenders.
 

Enkidu

Member
It would make sense to share the same voltage pool, but to CHARGE, one voltage would need to be higher than the other. Lithium Ion batteries keep their maximum voltage even at low charge, so to if one actually charges the other, it's not just shared voltage but some detect/amp circuitry build in for that - which I don't believe.

What's much more likely is that the handheld and joycon share the same voltage pool and if one is going low (like >5%) while the other still has a good charge, the thing with the better charge will keep the other going and drain first.
While I agree that they probably wouldn't use the joycons to charge the main battery, Lithium-Ion batteries do not keep their voltage constant. For a 3.7V battery, it will probably vary from 4.2V at maximum to 3.0V at minimum. It's non-linear though, so most of the time will be spent around 3.7V but even then the voltage does slowly drop.
 

Caelus

Member
They need that Switch direct ASAP, this console sounds super kooky and we need all the info we can get.
 
Bring lots of Joy-cons on a trip, and you won't need an external battery-charger! Just four pairs should bring you past 80%!
 

noshten

Member
So potentially if I have a ProController it might allow me a bit longer game sessions on the go. On the other hand I'd prefer to simply have a battery pack with me instead of hoping the Joycons keep my Switch running.
 
As a Spaniard, my opinion is that you should always take anything our press says with a truckload of salt, and in the case of the "gaming" section of a general publication, you might want to buy a salt quarry.

Not that this can't be true per se, you know about stopped clocks and all that, but...

Edit: Hahahahahah:

ACTUALIZACIÓN: Desde Nintendo nos han informado de que se ha producido un mal entendido en la presentación de esta mañana. Según parece Nintendo Switch es capaz de alimentar la batería de los Joy-Con, pero los Joy-Con no son capaces de compartir su batería con Nintendo Switch.

Translation:

UPDATE: We've been informed from Nintendo that there's been a miscomunication in this morning's presentation. Apparently Nintendo Switch can feed the Joy-Con batteries, but the Joy-Con can't share their battery with the Nintendo Switch.

So utterly, utterly unexpected. :D Gotta love the "mistakes were made" political speech too.
 

Zedark

Member
As a Spaniard, my opinion is that you should always take anything our press says with a truckload of salt, and in the case of the "gaming" section of a general publication, you might want to buy a salt quarry.

Not that this can't be true per se, you know about stopped clocks and all that, but...

Edit: Hahahahahah:



Translation:



So utterly, utterly unexpected. :D
Well, that settles it lol! As we thought before, the system only charges the joy-cons, not the other way around. It's too bad in a way, since mutual feedback could have been quite cool as an optional feature, but not a big issue in my eyes.
 

Luigiv

Member
Sounds dumb, especially when it's the joycons charging an almost dead console.

The difference in battery capacity and power draw is ridiculous. Like charging a laptop with your phone. Maybe not though, who knows.
The two joycons together have ~25% the capacity of the main unit. That's pretty significant. Being able to use all three batteries together as if it were one unit is pretty smart.

Edit: But I guess that's not going to be the case looking above.
 

notaskwid

Member
So this means you won't be able to play the console home if you don't have other controller, since you can't charge the joycons independently (without a 90dollar piece of plastic).

Ah, ok, clarified.
 

ItIsOkBro

Member
if the joycons change the console and the console charges the joycons...holy crap did nintendo just invent perpetual battery life??
 

Genio88

Member
That's a clever function, what i'm curious to know if that means we won't get 3 hours of Zelda gameplay if Switch battery is 100% charged but Joycons ones are like 20%
 
Been discredited already, was fake news. Hope OP will update as soon as possible.
Nah, OP needs to make the "Switch cures cancer" thread so the professional Nintendo haters can jump in with the "Oh really? But I can do that on my PS/Xbox from home already" and "yeah? So what? It's a gimped console". Let's keep this train a rollin'.

23 days left
(for Aussies anyway).
 

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
Edit: Hahahahahah:

ACTUALIZACIÓN: Desde Nintendo nos han informado de que se ha producido un mal entendido en la presentación de esta mañana. Según parece Nintendo Switch es capaz de alimentar la batería de los Joy-Con, pero los Joy-Con no son capaces de compartir su batería con Nintendo Switch.

Translation:

UPDATE: We've been informed from Nintendo that there's been a miscomunication in this morning's presentation. Apparently Nintendo Switch can feed the Joy-Con batteries, but the Joy-Con can't share their battery with the Nintendo Switch.

So utterly, utterly unexpected. :D Gotta love the "mistakes were made" political speech too.

As expected.
 
Top Bottom