The Nintendo Switch Finally Adds Support for Bluetooth Headphones

For a console designed to be performed virtually anyplace, the Nintendo Switch has mysteriously lacked assist for wi-fi headphones, regardless of having Bluetooth connectivity. You’ve both needed to join headphones utilizing a wire, or connect a wi-fi headphone adapter. But with the 13.0.0 Switch replace that simply rolled out, the Switch finally supports Bluetooth audio units.

Nintendo of America simply introduced the brand new characteristic on its Twitter account, although you’d have assumed the corporate would have made an even bigger deal about selling the added performance given Switch avid gamers have been asking for native Bluetooth audio assist for years now. Better late than by no means?

With the 13.0.0 replace put in, a brand new Bluetooth Audio part seems within the Switch’s settings menu beneath Controllers and Sensors, with a easy Pair Device possibility, together with a listing of limitations which can be additionally detailed in a new support page on the Nintendo website. With a Bluetooth audio system related—be it a pair of wi-fi headphones, earbuds, or a speaker—the Switch is simply in a position to wirelessly hook up with up two controllers at a time. This means four-participant Super Mario Party battles are out of the query. Bluetooth audio units may even be disconnected when two Switches are domestically related for wi-fi multiplayer gaming.

The Switch additionally solely permits a single Bluetooth audio system to be actively paired at anyone time, though it may possibly bear in mind connections to as much as 10 completely different units at a time. The console additionally doesn’t assist the microphone on wi-fi headphones or audio system, presumably as a result of voice chat performance on the Switch is already reliant on a smartphone app, and Nintendo warns that avid gamers could expertise audio latency relying on the kind of Bluetooth audio system getting used. Those will not be insignificant limitations, and it’s in all probability why Nintendo didn’t embody this performance at launch. But with the Switch getting lengthy within the tooth, and the vacations are arising with solely the OLED Switch as a brand new {hardware} possibility, it’s an improve that does make the unique Switch extra interesting for many who haven’t purchased one but.