HN Explorer

Show HN: I wrote a small lib to turn a USB gamepad into a Bluetooth one (github.com)

26 points by stavros ↗ HN
I had two old USB gamepads lying around that I wanted to use, but my computer is too far from the couch, so I wrote a little ESP32-S3 firmware that turns USB gamepads into Bluetooth ones.

You connect your gamepad to the ESP32-S3 with an OTG cable, power the ESP32 with either 5V somehow or a powered USB hub, and now you can pair the controller via Bluetooth to your PC!

5 comments

[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 26.3 ms ] thread
schappim
This is a clever and practical hack!

Love the decoupled arch / making it easy to tweak for different controllers.

Nice work!

p2detar
Awesome project. With the current price of DRAM, I've been looking at the possibility to do some side projects with ESP32 as opposed to RPi. As a complete newbie, could you help me by recommending where I could start from, i.e., Software, tools, docs? Thanks.
Tade0
I like how readable the code is. I don't write anything in C++ nowadays, but it's clear enough for me to follow.
gkhartman
I had a quick thought to do something like this a while back, but never got around to the experimental phase. I ended up buying a new controller instead (whilst grumbling about making an adapter). Thanks for making it happen, and being kind enough to open source it. Looking forward to giving it a try later.