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May 24, 2023

PS4 Hall Effect stick functional prototype now ready. It could fix drift forever and its creator promises it will be open source

by wololo · June 9, 2023 Hardware Engineer Marius Heier has been working for 4 years on a DIY Hall Effect sensor design for controller analog sticks, which would fix drift issues forever. With a

by wololo · June 9, 2023

Hardware Engineer Marius Heier has been working for 4 years on a DIY Hall Effect sensor design for controller analog sticks, which would fix drift issues forever. With a functional prototype now ready for PS4 controllers (more work still needed for PS5 and Xbox), the tinkerer promises his designs and code will be made open source.

We’ve talked about Marius’s work earlier this year. At the time he was still in a “research” phase for a hall effect sensor based solution for PS4s. Although the technology is here and fairly well known, the difficulty was in finding a design that would fit inside the PS4 controller’s constrained space, at a reasonable cost of production.

Heier has recently announced that he has a fully functional prototype ready for PS4 (which he will be sending to some of his patreon supporters) and that he ultimately plans to open source the entire design. If done properly, this could democratize access to high quality, long-lasting controllers at reasonable prices.

Stick drift is probably the most common pain point of all console gamers. While some controllers have a reputation to be more sensitive to drift than others, at the end of the day they all use very similar components (and, in some cases, exactly the same components, manufactured in the exact same factories), and analog drift is bound to happen

Specialized site iFixIt had a detailed and fascinating article on why the problem happens (the potentiometers used in the Joysticks start wearing out after 400hrs of gameplay, or, in other words, less than a year of playing 2h daily), why “fixes” you can find online are at best going to mitigate the issue only for a short while (the only way to fix an old potentiometer is to replace the potentiometer itself, so other techniques, including software recalibration are at best temporary workarounds). Their conclusion: analog drift happens because gaming companies put cheap components into their controllers, in the name of profit.

The potentiometer-based sticks on the PS5 Dualsense (iFixIt)

They mention that solutions exist. The N64 for example had optical sensors to read the position of the joystick. The Stick itself was not perfect and susceptible to wear and tear, but the sensors were great.

Another “simple” solution would be to still use the potentiometers, but make them easier to replace, without soldering skills. The DualSense Edge for PS5 provides some replaceable analog sticks, which in itself might make the controller worth its cost.

There’s however one controller that had the reputation of never drifting: the Dreamcast controller. And for good reason. The Dreamcast controller used magnets instead of potentiometers, relying on the Hall effect for its analog stick technology. The magnets have a very long lifespan, and can even be replaced if they ever wear down.

Tokyo No-Drift

The reason these are not implemented in all recent consoles is most likely cost. Hall Effect-based joysticks involve some licensing fees for patented technology, that Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo are possibly not willing to pay.

Kits exist to replace some consoles’ sticks with Hall Effect equivalent, at a cost (for example the gulikit replacement for Switch Joycons or Steam Deck, which effectively fixes drift for good, for about $30). But I wasn’t able to find any equivalent commercial product for the PS4 or PS5. (Let me know in the comments if I missed something!)

You might know Marius Heier from his PS4 USB C mod, a $10 replacement component for PS4 controllers (which you can order from his website):

He has recently shared a video showcasing his progress on the PS4 Hall Effect stick, effectively demonstrating he has a working prototype. He states:

Over the past decade, more than 400 million gaming controllers, valued at over $20 billion, have been sold, each featuring joysticks that are commonly plagued by potentiometer issues. Numerous class-action lawsuits have been filed in an attempt to tackle this problem. If the world won’t change, we’ll just have to change the world ourselves. So, I decided to confront this issue head-on, and I plan to make the final design solution freely available to all.

This video documents the process of designing, testing, and implementing a rotary encoder hall effect position sensor (AS5600 by Osram), a component typically used in robotics, as a substitute for the potentiometer in the world’s most popular joystick.

The first prototype is specifically made for PS4 controller. But will fit any controller that uses 3.3V main power and have room for the modules. (XBOX and PS5 uses 1.8V)

Once the prototype stage concludes, the design will be released as an open public design.

Although I do share other people’s concerns that Marius might be running into legal troubles (either licensing issues as mentioned above, or unscrupulous companies stealing his designs and playing patent trolls later on), I am very excited at the possibilities his work could bring, for repair and longevity of gaming controllers. Excited to see where this will take us.

Do your controllers suffer from drift? How much extra would you honestly be willing pay for controllers that could last much longer? I’d love to see your thoughts in the comments.