Joystick drift had been a hot topic since the Nintendo Switch’s Joy-Cons have a pretty bad reputation of drifting after a while. While my own Switch’s Joy-Cons lasted for two good years before drifting – some people have said that their Joy-Cons started drifting after a week or so.
With that said, the topic of joystick drift got even more popular since the Sony DualSense controller suffered the infamous joystick drift on a large scale too.
So, this E3 2021, GuliKit unveiled a brand new type of joystick that uses Hall sensors instead of the conventional potentiometers.
A little explanation here – controller joysticks work when the stick is pushed in a certain direction, and its internal brushes along with two rings (potentiometers) – one for the X-axis and another for the Y-axis, which sends its appropriate signals back and determines which direction you’re pushing the joystick to go.
The infamous joystick drift is commonly associated with dirt and grime buildup between the potentiometer, which causes the signal to be misinterpreted.
GuliKit’s Hall-sensing joystick eliminates the potentiometers and it essentially becomes “contactless” since Hall sensors work by detecting the fluctuation of voltage when a magnet gets into or out of the conductor’s proximity.
To an extent, being “contactless” means that the potentiometers will never wear off since no parts are brushing along each other. It’s a good thing when we think about it – but we still have our doubts when it comes to how the Hall sensor joysticks feel as bring “contactless” means it’s also “frictionless”, hence less haptic feedback.
Perhaps GuliKit is going to add some springs or some sort to ensure the joystick isn’t too loose – but we’ll only find out later.
GuliKit claims that they’ll be releasing new controllers with the new electromagnetic Hall sensing joysticks and the price won’t be that much different too.
Interesting times ahead – and I’m looking forward to those controllers.
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