Joy-Con Tester: Joy-Con Drift and Button Test

Pair your Joy-Con with a computer and check each stick for drift, every button and the HD rumble motors, before you calibrate or send them in.

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Connect your Joy-Con, then press A

Pair each Joy-Con over Bluetooth: hold the small sync button on its rail until the player lights run, then pick "Joy-Con (L)" and "Joy-Con (R)" in your device's Bluetooth settings. Chrome and Edge join a connected pair into one controller. Browsers only reveal a controller after a button press. Nothing is sent anywhere.

Joy-Con pair

Not connected yet: the diagram shows the Joy-Con layout and lights up as soon as it sends input.

Left stick–

Right stick–

Left trigger

Right trigger

All buttons and axes · 0 buttons pressed

Press every button once: each one gets a tick when it registers. Values show analog pressure from 0.00 to 1.00.

Health tests

1. Stick drift

Measures where each stick settles when nobody touches it, and checks for buttons or triggers that read as pressed. Pass: under 5% of full travel. Warning: 5–10%. Fail: 10% or more.

Not run yet.

2. Circularity

Rotate each stick slowly around its outer edge. Measures how far the edge strays from a perfect circle. Pass: up to 10% average error. Warning: up to 20%. Fail: above 20% or a direction that can't reach 75% of full travel.

Left

Right

Not run yet.

3. Vibration

Plays a rumble. The strong motor is the heavy, low rumble in the left grip; the weak motor is the finer buzz on the right.

Connect a controller to test vibration.

4. Input update rate

Estimates how often the browser receives new data from the controller while you move a stick.

DurationConnection

Not measured yet.

More tests for PlayStation controllers

Connect a DualSense, DualSense Edge or DualShock 4 directly for what the standard gamepad connection hides: motion sensors, touchpad, battery and the true report interval, plus adaptive triggers and lights on a DualSense. Your browser asks which device to allow, and the permission lasts until you close the tab. This page only reads the controller and sends effect commands (trigger effects, light bar, player lights), never calibration or firmware, and it resets them when you leave.

Decoded from published formats (the Linux hid-playstation driver and SDL); not yet tested on a real controller. Over Bluetooth, deep mode switches the controller to its full report format until it reconnects, and asks first: if another app or game stops seeing it, turn the controller off and on.

Not connected.

Motion sensors

Tilt and turn the controller: the model follows it, and the graphs show the gyroscope (turn rate, degrees per second) and the accelerometer (g) on each axis. Put it down flat and run the rest check to measure gyro drift.

Gyro – · Accel –

Touchpad

Draw on the touchpad with one or two fingers. Each finger gets its own colour and the ID the controller gives it; a dead strip shows up as a gap in the lines. Press the pad to test its click.

No touch yet.

Adaptive triggers (DualSense only)

Pick an effect, then press L2 or R2. Resistance pushes back from the start point; click is a section of resistance that gives way, like a trigger pull; vibration buzzes the trigger from the start point. The bars show where each trigger is.

EffectTriggersStart point 30%Strength 8

–

Light bar and player lights

Light bar colourPlayer lights

Battery

The level the controller reports, in 10% steps, and whether it is charging. It updates live, so plug in a cable to check the charging port.

–

Report interval

How often the controller sends a report, from the controller's own clock and from the time each report reached this page. This is the report interval, not end-to-end input lag: it leaves out the time a press takes inside the controller, in the game and on the screen.

Controller health report

Selling or buying a used controller? Run the four tests, press every button, then share the report link in your listing or message.

Connect a controller to start the report.

Connect your Joy-Con

Joy-Con connect to a computer over Bluetooth only. Detach them from the console, hold the small round sync button on the rail of each one until the green player lights run, and pick “Joy-Con (L)” and “Joy-Con (R)” in your Bluetooth settings. Pair both, then press A.

In Chrome and Edge on a computer, a left and a right Joy-Con are joined into one controller named Joy-Con L+R, reported in the standard layout like a Pro Controller (Chromium source). The diagram shows the pair with Nintendo’s labels: B is button 0 and A is button 1, because browsers number buttons by position. A single Joy-Con is turned sideways: its stick becomes the only stick and its SL and SR buttons become the shoulders.

Testing for Joy-Con drift

Stick drift is the Joy-Con’s best-known fault. Europe’s consumer organisation BEUC collected about 25,000 complaints before closing its case in 2023, when Nintendo committed to free repairs of drifting Joy-Con.

Lay both Joy-Con flat and run the drift test. Under 5% passes. The small Joy-Con stick has short travel, so even a few percent can move a cursor in menus.
Run the circularity test, rolling each stick gently round its rim. A Joy-Con stick that falls short in one direction often has dust under its rubber skirt.
Press every button, including the stick clicks, Capture and Home, and watch each one tick.

Fixing it

Nintendo’s own steps for a stick that moves on its own are: update the system and the controllers, remove any stick covers or skins, then calibrate under System Settings › Controllers and Sensors › Calibrate Control Sticks; if calibration doesn’t help, send them in for service (Nintendo). Run the drift test before and after each step. Rumble works here too: Chrome drives the Joy-Con’s HD rumble as a simple strong and weak buzz, so you can confirm both motors respond. For the Pro Controller, see the Switch Pro Controller tester.

How the browser numbers the Joy-Con’s buttons

Browsers describe a recognised controller with the W3C standard gamepad layout, which numbers buttons by position, not by the symbol printed on them. This is the map the tester uses for the Joy-Con pair; the list under the diagram shows the same numbers live.

Button	Position	On the Joy-Con
0	Bottom face button	B
1	Right face button	A
2	Left face button	Y
3	Top face button	X
4	Left bumper	L
5	Right bumper	R
6	Left trigger	ZL
7	Right trigger	ZR
8	Back / select	−
9	Start / menu	+
10	Left stick press	LS
11	Right stick press	RS
12	D-pad up	↑
13	D-pad down	↓
14	D-pad left	←
15	D-pad right	→
16	Home / guide	Home
17	Touchpad / capture	Capture (Capture, on the left Joy-Con)

Frequently asked questions

Does this work with Switch 2 Joy-Con 2?

Not yet. Joy-Con 2 connect over Bluetooth Low Energy with Nintendo's own protocol instead of standard HID, so browsers don't see them as controllers. Use the console's Calibrate Control Sticks screen instead.

Why do my two Joy-Con show as one controller?

Chrome and Edge on a computer join a left and a right Joy-Con into one controller called Joy-Con L+R, so they report as a normal gamepad with two sticks. Connect just one and it is turned sideways into a small controller of its own.

Will Nintendo repair drifting Joy-Con for free?

In Europe, the consumer group BEUC reported in 2023 that Nintendo committed to free repairs of Joy-Con affected by drift. Elsewhere, contact Nintendo support about a warranty repair.

Where are SL and SR?

On a single Joy-Con held sideways, Chrome turns SL and SR into the shoulder buttons, 4 and 5. With both Joy-Con joined, Chrome reports them as extra buttons after the standard ones: 18 and 19 on the left Joy-Con, 20 and 21 on the right. They appear at the end of the list under the diagram.