How To: Connect an SNES Controller to your Android Phone

Arduino Computers & Mobile Fun & Games
How To: Connect an SNES Controller to your Android Phone


Spotted in the MAKE Flickr Pool:
Bruno Soares wanted to play a classic Super Nintendo game on his cell phone, but it’s touch screen was unresponsive and just wasn’t cutting it as a controller. Instead of just giving up, he devised a Rube Goldberg-esque system to connect an actual SNES controller to his phone.

First, he connected his controller to an Arduino so that he could read out the state of each button. Next, he transmitted each button press out of the Arduino’s serial port and into a BlueSMIRF Bluteooth radio, which then relayed the commands wirelessly to his phone. Finally, he wrote a custom keyboard driver for Android that converted the serial Bluetooth data into keystrokes that he could use to control an SNES emulator.

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8 thoughts on “How To: Connect an SNES Controller to your Android Phone

  1. Jenny Fer says:

    This is not something that you always think about getting, but it is a real handy piece of kit as it is a way of making a voice call sound louder by around 30 decibels. This device connects via Bluetooth to a cell phone and for someone who is hard at hearing this must be a vast improvement to the normal sound on the phone.
    http://www.usedibmpcs.com/

  2. Bruno Soares says:

    thanks for this post

    1. Matt Mets says:

      Thanks for sharing your project!

  3. Andrew Turner says:

    looks like a perfectly sane way to connect a controller.

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