So I just got home from work, and I was playing Nintendo Switch at work. Well, the battery died.
So I get get home, plop that bad boy in the dock. Turn on the TV, turn on my controller, and…TV has no signal, controller isn’t connecting.
I walk over, and press and hold the power button while it’s in the dock, and it’s not doing anything. I pull it out of the dock, and press the power button. It’s showing me a blank screen with a red battery symbol to indicate no battery.
Yeah, that’s fine. The dock has external power. Use that. Except, no. It’s not. I need to wait for it to charge for a few minutes. At least enough to turn it on. THEN I can run off of wall power.
I understand the BATTERY is dead. I get that. But why can’t you just draw from AC if it’s in the dock? I don’t even care if it’s charging right now. I just want to play. It can charge later when I go to sleep, and it’s just in the dock all night.
I want the switch 2 to just be drop and play, even with a dead battery. Bad enough I need to worry about if my controller is charged!
Can we bring back the WiiU controller battery life? I’m pretty sure that thing is still charged since the 1970s. Which doesn’t even make sense, but it still somehow goes to show how long that controllers battery lasted.
Back when phones still had removable batteries, it was possible to use a battery-less phone that was hooked up to a charger.
I can’t imagine the Switch would ever be in a situation where the dock would be providing less power than the device needs to stay charged.
Most people (especially kids) don’t know anything about power or USB. I can’t imagine it’s rare for someone to try to play their switch while it’s plugged into a USB 2.0 port on an old laptop
Sure, but we’re talking about the dock, which is its own device that requires a minimum power threshold to work.
Isn’t it still USB-C, though? An old laptop was just an example, people have definitely also tried old chargers for their docks
It is USB-C, but the part that goes from the dock to the Switch will always be a constant. If the dock itself is not receiving enough power, it (shouldn’t) power the Switch at all.
I have heard it happening with power banks. Unless it’s a “good” one, it will charge Switch slower than the power it uses, so it still drains battery, but slower.