Hacker News Reader

Comment by rhinoceraptor | Hacker News Reader

AFAIK, it's highly discouraged to use any charger or dock other than the official Nintendo ones. Apparently Nintendo really bungled the USB-C charging protocol implementation and it's possible your switch will get fried if using 3rd party chargers or docks.

View on HN

Strange, we have four switches in my family and I charge them on anything from phone chargers to 12v usb-c car chargers to 65 watts lenovo laptop chargers.

I guess if there is a possibility for that it is very low or I am very lucky.

They finally figured out[1] why some docks would brick the Switch. The bad docks were implementing USB-PD in microcontroller and putting too much voltage on pin. Proper USB-PD adapters are fine; it is only a couple Switch-specific docks that were problematic.

1: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/08/heres-why-nintendo-sw...

Supposedly, though Nintendo's USB PD implementation in the Switch is a little jacked, as long as you use a charger that implements its PD support with an actual dedicated PD controller, you should be safe. The Nyko travel dock that infamously fried Switches faked it with a microcontroller which could sometimes overvolt one of the pins and fry the Switch's PD controller, rendering it unable to charge... at least according to this analysis by an engineer working on a third-party dock: https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/ckaiiv/an_e...

My understanding is that third party chargers work fine though may not charge the Switch while under high load, but most third party docks don't implement PD correctly or at all and that is what can cause issues or bricking. There are also some issues with using A to C cables since USB A chargers will only provide 5V, so if the output amperage isn't high enough the Switch can't charge because it will only use a fraction of the available amps regardless of voltage.

[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/bjwpsy/nint...

Yet another anecdotal data point, but I've done the same with my Switch and MPB. I've charged both from a battery pack, phone chargers, etc. in a pinch and never had any issues (other than really really slow charging speeds).

I've just assumed those "warnings" are there for liability reasons because these companies didn't test their devices' charging capabilities across all possible USB charging devices.

I think most of the issues come from devices that trick the switch into operating in docked mode where it operates at a higher power state and can cause it to overdraw power from a charger. The switch doesn't abide by the standard usb-pd spec and if used with a charger that poorly implements the spec there is a chance it can request too much power.

I think the issues are more with poor quality chargers than the switch itself.

There really isn't any problem with chargers. There were issues with some early USB-C cables, but that wasn't switch specific.

There have been problems with 3rd party doc which is partly Nintendo and partly 3rd parties.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/08/heres-why-nintendo-sw...

I can't help but wonder if these charging protocols are "bungled" at the executive level to preserve margins.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com