Switch Pro Controller Test
Check a Switch Pro Controller for stick drift, dead buttons and worn ZL/ZR triggers — reading raw values the console's own calibration cannot hide. Everything runs in your browser.
Connect your controller and press any button
Plug it in over USB or pair it over Bluetooth, then press any button so your browser can see it. Some browsers only reveal a controller after the first input.
Let go of both sticks completely, then start the check. We'll measure the resting position for a few seconds.
Left stick
Right stick
Buttons
Labels read Xbox / PlayStation / Nintendo, because the underlying layout is index-based rather than brand-based.
Triggers
Live axis readout
| Axis | Mapping | Value |
|---|
Pro Controller drift is not Joy-Con drift
Nintendo drift comes in two distinct flavours and it matters a great deal which one you have. Joy-Con drift is the famous one: the sliding contact inside that very small stick wears through its own graphite pad, and Nintendo has repaired it free of charge worldwide since 2019, with or without a warranty, and refunded customers who had already paid for the repair. If that is the controller in your hands, measure it on the Joy-Con drift test, which reads a single Joy-Con's one stick and can rotate the plot for the sideways grip. The Switch Pro Controller is not part of that programme. Its stick is a full-size potentiometer module of the same class fitted to the Xbox One pad and the DualShock 4, and it fails the way those do — slowly, on the stick you use most, as a steady offset rather than a jitter.
Test the Pro Controller here before you trust how it feels on the console, because the Switch actively hides small drift from you. System Settings › Controllers and Sensors › Calibrate Control Sticks stores a correction offset on the console, and that offset applies on the console and nowhere else. This page reads the raw axis values over USB or Bluetooth and never sees it, which is exactly why a pad that feels fine docked can read 0.050 here. A healthy Pro Controller rests inside about 0.020 on both sticks; the check flags anything past 0.080.
The face buttons are mirrored relative to an Xbox pad, and that trips up more Switch owners than the drift does. Nintendo's A sits where Xbox's B sits, and Nintendo's B where Xbox's A sits. The button grid above labels every cell Xbox / PlayStation / Nintendo for this exact reason: press B on your Pro Controller and the cell reading A / Cross / B is the one that lights up. Nothing is broken when it does. The shoulder triggers follow the same convention — ZL and ZR are the analog pair on the trigger bars.
Nintendo covers the Pro Controller under a twelve-month limited warranty and handles repairs through its own support site rather than the retailer. Outside that window, a paid repair or a replacement stick module are the options, and Hall-effect drop-ins for the Pro Controller board are now widely available. One limit worth stating plainly: the Pro Controller's gyroscope, HD rumble and NFC reader are not exposed to a browser at all, so this page can speak for the sticks, the buttons and the triggers, and nothing else.
See whether a game would ignore the offset with the deadzone visualizer, or check the buttons in detail on the controller button test.
