Has someone tried USB-C smartphone game pad?

[DrYak]

Has some played around with smartphone-specific USB-C gamepads? I don't mean classical wired PC/Game console controller (e.g.: anything my Logitech). I mean the one specifically built for smartphone, where you dock the phone inside and the controller wraps around, reminiscent of Nintendo Switch's joycons (e.g.: Gamesir, .

The reason I am asking is that the one I've tried is a bit more complex that your garden variety PC gamepad.
They usually show up as two different USB HID device: A game pad and a touchscreen, and use an Android app in order to map inputs and gestures to the various buttons (this makes it possible to support games that only work with on-screen taps and swipes and don't support a controller) - (e.g.: the one I've bought by default maps one of the analog sticks as screen swipe).

So did someone try such gamepad and find a good way to map them on Linux?

[MadameMalady]

I have a razor kishi controller that works well with most emulators and stuff i've tried it with on my pinephone pro.

[DrYak]

I have a razor kishi controller

It just presents itself as a USB joystick? Or does it handle the touch screen emulation in hardware? (and thus requires some companion app to configure)

[MadameMalady]

I have a razor kishi controller

It just presents itself as a USB joystick? Or does it handle the touch screen emulation in hardware? (and thus requires some companion app to configure)

What do you mean by emulate touchscreen?
It does indeed show up as a usb joystick

[elinkser]

I found 2 cheap ones that work with pinephone over USB: Gamesir X5 Lite which wraps around the phone horizontally, and theGamesir Nova Lite which connects by cable. My 8bitdo connects to my Linux laptop but not my Mobian bookworm 3GB pinephone.

Verified with AntiMicroX joystick configuration app.


None of the bluetooth seem to be recognized.


Edit: to answer the OP question, the dpad, buttons, and two joysticks are recognized in hardware e.g. in jstest-gtk on Linux.