The CoverBoy smartphone gamepad

A smartphone gamepad you always carry with you

Dinofly

Following Follow project

Liked Like project

Become a Hackaday.io member

Just one more thing

To make the experience fit your profile, pick a username and tell us what interests you.

OK, I'm done! Skip

Public Chat

Similar projects worth following

657 views

0 comments

0 followers

1 likes

View Gallery

Public Chat

Description

A lot of emulators exist for smartphones. You can either use touch controls, which is far from ideal, or carry a gamepad with you. However the gamepad takes up space and you might not take it with you every day.

The CoverBoy is a smartphone flip cover that integrates a very thin gamepad with physical buttons. It covers part of the screen, but since it is dedicated to retrogaming we are emulating low resolution games anyway so who cares ?

It uses USB OTG, not bluetooth, and does not require a dedicated battery.

Details

Pictures are cardboard prototype.

I don't have a lot of time to spend on the project and also i don't know much about product development nor electronics. A community effort would be great !

My research has led me to Raphnet's usb_game12 PCB that could be used with an ATMEGA8 on a TQFP package. To achieve very flat buttons the best one i have identified are the GBA SP ones, with tactile dome switches.

Open topics:
- could shoulder buttons work or should they be on the front face ?
- does having an always plugged in gamepad affect battery life ?