I attempted this sketchy Change 2 dock so that you don’t must

My favourite factor about handheld consoles is their versatility. If I need to play my Change 2, ROG Ally X, or Steam Deck OLED in my lounge on my TV, I simply slide the moveable into Nintendo’s official dock or hook it as much as my Jsaux 6-in-1 Multifunctional Docking Station, relying on what machine it’s. Then, if I need to take the hand-held on the go, I simply pop it out and recreation away wherever I would like. Nevertheless, these days, I’ve modified issues up a bit and I have been doing a number of my Change 2 gaming in my basement workplace on my pc monitor whereas my son is sleeping within the night.

Positive, I may transfer the Change 2’s official dock downstairs, however that may contain unplugging the dock, transferring it, after which hooking it up once more. That creates a number of noise and will probably wake the sleeping child up. My gaming time is proscribed lately, so making issues as plug-and-play as potential is important. So, in opposition to my higher judgment, I just lately dove into the wild world of third-party Change 2 docks, and to my shock, I appear to have discovered one that really works so long as you are prepared to place in a bit of additional work.

Say hey to Jemdo’s Change 2 HDMI Cable Dock

It is colourful and sort of bizarre, however works surprisingly nicely

Again within the OG Change period, it was generally believed that third-party docks may probably brick your Change or, on the very least, break the USB-C port ultimately, stopping you from docking and charging the hand-held. After I found this, I finished utilizing the Nyko dock I bought, and I did not delve again into the world of third-party docks till Genki’s supposedly protected Covert Dock launched a number of years later. It is all very technical, however the issue is reportedly tied to dock voltage points, third-party dock PD controllers, and a few not very third-party pleasant encryption on Nintendo’s finish.

There is a risk that third-party Change 2 docks may endure from the identical issues as the unique Change, but it surely’s nonetheless unclear proper now. What we do know for positive is Nintendo has deliberately damaged the Change 2’s generic USB-C dock compatibility with a devoted encryption chip in its handheld.

After doing a little bit of analysis on Change 2 docks, there appear to be a few on the market that declare to have already cracked Nintendo’s encryption code, even supposing the hand-held solely launched a number of months in the past. I finally landed on Jemdo’s Change 2 HDMI Cable Dock as a result of it is comparatively reasonably priced and, in comparison with Nintendo’s official Change 2 dock, it is fairly smooth — it is mainly simply an HDMI-to-USB-C cable. I’ve additionally by no means seen a USB-C cable that is orange and blue earlier than, so it caught my eye.

There appear to be a number of variations of the colourful cable out there, together with a black one, the coloured iteration I purchased, and a dock-like dongle, however all of them appear to assist 144Hz and HDMI 2.1 (in Canada, I needed to choose the $40 144Hz/HDMI 2.1 model particularly within the Amazon itemizing). Making the state of affairs much more complicated, the dock is bought on Amazon underneath a number of totally different model names that I’ve by no means heard of earlier than, together with this one known as Yigorn (some listings typically additionally promote a 60Hz/4K model, so ensure you choose the right one).

Be ready to obtain a really shady firmware file

The method is kinda of terrifying, but it surely works

With my analysis out of the way in which, I positioned my order and Jemdo’s Dock arrived a number of days later, however to my shock, it did not embody an influence brick. To unravel this challenge, I dug up an older 60W iPad charger I had mendacity round and plugged it into the colourful Jemdo Dock once I set it up in my workplace (this is similar wattage because the official dock). Since I run many of the consoles in my workplace by an HDMI switcher, I slid the HDMI finish of the Jemdo Dock into the field, the USB-C aspect into the Change 2, and plugged within the iPad charger. To my shock, it truly labored instantly, displaying Donkey Kong Bananza in all its glory on my monitor, however one thing felt barely off. Colours appeared slightly washed out, significantly with video games that assist HDR like Mario Kart World.

That is the place issues get a bit wild, so bear with me. I noticed feedback on Amazon and Reddit indicating that there is a firmware replace for the Jemdo Dock that fixes its HDR points, however I wasn’t capable of finding a hyperlink to it anyplace. After a fast Google search, I stumbled throughout this video from a comparatively small YouTube channel known as Glitched. Their video is targeted on a cable that appears equivalent to the Jemdo Dock, however with Cabletime branding. I assumed that this was simply one other firm branding and promoting the identical Change 2 dock given they encountered the identical challenge. To unravel the issue, Glitched downloaded firmware for an 8K model of one more totally different model of cable from one other firm, and to their shock, it truly labored on the Cabletime model.

At this level, I figured I did not have a lot to lose, so I went forward and adopted the hyperlink in Glitched’s bio and downloaded a reasonably terrifying-looking Chinese language .exe file from a random Google Drive. This system opened, and a pink line appeared on my display that turned inexperienced after a number of seconds. There is no approach this might work, proper? Your complete state of affairs is simply too bizarre. But once more, to my utter shock, HDR now seems on my show once I’m utilizing the Jemdo dock with the Change 2, although the hand-held seems to have bother switching out of HDR when returning to the menu, however this might simply be a difficulty with my LG Ultragear 27GP950-B 4K monitor.

And in any case that, I now have a working third-party Change 2 dock that appears to run almost in addition to Nintendo’s official dock. It will get slightly sizzling after a number of hours of use, however that is the one challenge I’ve run into prior to now few days. Will it break my Change 2 in some unspecified time in the future over the following few weeks? I do not know, however I positively hope not.