NOT OFFICIALLY SUPPORTED OR INVOLVED WITH NINTENDO IN ANY WAY

This is an independent project.

Switch Remoteplay

The goal of this project is to support easily playing your Nintendo Switch remotely or locally via another device with a keyboard/mouse/controller/touchscreen. No hacking of your Switch is required.

Plan (not finished yet, see the Status section below):

You <===> Website <=====> Server <--Bluetooth--> Switch
            ^                                      |
            |                            video capture via HDMI
            |                                      |
            |                                      v
            '------------------------------ Streaming Server

Example video.

Status

One keyboard layout is supported to map keys on a keyboard to control the control sticks and some of the keys on a Nintendo Switch. I've mainly tested this with Animal Crossing. This is very much a messy work in progress right now but you can indeed play your Switch remotely with support for a few buttons. No streaming to the client has been set up yet. I've only tested with streaming in a video chat app and pointing the camera at the Switch.

A fork of this repo is working on a better client-side UI with support for binding custom keys and selecting a controller layout to use as input. I'm hoping to merge that soon (before June 2020).

Requirements

The host (person setting this up) needs:

• Nintendo Switch
• Linux machine to host the service and connect via Bluetooth to the Switch (tested with a Raspberry Pi 4B)
• (optional) video capture card to see the video (or just have bad quality and lag in a video chat app)

The client (your friend) needs:

• A web browser to open the client and send commands
• A normal keyboard (support for controllers, touch screens, and a mouse are planned)

Plans

• Support gaming controllers.
• Support custom key bindings.
• Show the video in the client website.
• Support recording and running macros.
• Default layout options for common controllers.
• Default key binding options for keyboard/mouse for certain games.
• Loadable and exportable key binding configurations.
• Phone apps to talk to the Switch and host the service instead of the a Linux machine (I won't do this but I hope someone else does).

Looking for Help

I'm looking for help with implementing the above plans. Some more specific things:

• Porting client.html to React/TypeScript (already started in a fork)
• Add security options to the service: auth, allowed origins, disabling buttons like Home and screen capture, limiting the number of clients connected.
• Getting the service to run on Windows (hard since the libraries I'm relying on require Linux)
• Improving the client UX (this can wait until it's refactored)
• Phone app instead of a Linux machine

Setup

See:

• server: a service to run on a device near your Switch (full API docs are there)
• client: a website for your friends to "connect" to your Switch

Issues

• Be careful not to press Ctrl+W (LStick Up + A) while playing! (will get addressed eventually)

Acknowledgements

A very special thank you to https://github.com/mart1nro/joycontrol for the very conveninent and full API and the acknowledgements there as well for so much of the great research into how to communicate with the Switch.