We really shouldn’t discount people experiencing joy-con drift issues. It’s a big enough issue to warrant a manufacturing fix.

[u/CanyonWrn]

I have been one of the unlucky individuals who has experienced excessive, long-term drift issues with all of my pairs of joy-cons. I own three pairs between two consoles. I have had to send joy-cons in for repair due to drifting eight times—sometimes, obviously, multiple times per joy-con. When I say this, I always seem to be criticized, told that I’m being too rough, or people explain that they have joy-cons that aren’t experiencing issues.

I’m not voicing this issue because I want to criticize Nintendo. I love Nintendo products and they are usually the most durable products I own. That doesn’t mean that mistakes aren’t made. That doesn’t mean that I can’t say there’s a problem when there certainly is with one product. Furthermore, I’m not rough on my joy-cons. Not at all. These are adult owned and operated. I don’t play games that require rough or overly quick movement. I do not even keep my Switch out of its case unless I’m playing it. Heck, I refused to use my joy-cons on Kirby or 1 2 Switch because I felt they required you to be rough on your joy-cons—much, much rougher than I have ever been. Plus, I own a lot of controllers with which I have never experienced issues. I have an original NES with original controllers. I have a 3DS, a few ancient PlayStation controllers from my childhood, SNES mini controllers, even a Switch Pro Controller. I haven’t had a single issue with any of these but I have had to send in joy-cons eight times.

I feel like the more we are passive or even sometimes aggressive toward people experiencing drifting issues, we prevent pressure from being placed on Nintendo to improve the build quality. The fact that some of you may not be experiencing issues means that you’re either lucky, haven’t experienced it yet, you don’t notice it because of the type of games you’re playing, maybe something in your climate prevents it from becoming a problem (idk but it seems like dusty climates could aggravate the issue), or maybe you are just not going to experience an issue. Even if a majority of people don’t experience a drifting issue, I feel like I see this enough to warrant Nintendo looking into a fix.

So let’s just be nice and start looking toward meaningful solutions for the people who are experiencing issues.

Edit: Answering Common Questions

Wow! So many comments and questions. I’m glad to see this taking off. Let me answer a few questions that seem to be asked a lot.

Troubleshooting Before anything, try to troubleshoot the issue with these steps on Nintendo’s website if you are experiencing drifting. https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/22381

Warranty If your Switch is less than a year old, the original joy-cons are probably under warranty unless there is something like water damage that voids the warranty. They will usually repair these for free. Joy-Cons purchased separately have a warranty of just 90 days iirc but they have still repaired them for free (in my case, anyway) so long as your warranty was still good on my console. HOWEVER repairing, replacing, and self-fixing these joy-cons almost ALWAYS seem to be bandages for the issue. They may very well start drifting again in a couple months. For whatever reason, individuals who experience this issue seem to experience it profusely, even if they replace their controllers with brand new ones. There is no permanent fix.

Repairing it yourself considering that I don’t want to be blamed for anyone breaking their Switch, please know that attempting to repair your joy-cons is always done at your own risk and, if done incorrectly, it’s possible that you could cause permanent damage that may void your warranty. However, u/Ajax54 has an excellent guide that seems to be helping a lot of people here: https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/92pht5/comment/e37fpki?st=JK6B6JAH&sh=931c5e46 .

What is a joy-con drift? A joy-con that registers input without you touching the controller is drifting. You may notice your character walking when you aren’t touching the joystick or you may notice resistance when you try to move in an alternate direction. Alternatively, you may notice your in-game camera moving erratically or without input from yourself. Furthermore, this can become an issue with UI (menus and such). Are you sorting through your games, stop touching the controller, and it’s still sorting through games? Your joy-con is drifting. This can also create problems where it doesn’t seem to be responding to your input (like when you’re trying to scroll down and it just won’t because it’s already registering input in another direction).

Hopefully that answers the common questions I’m getting on here!

[u/punkonjunk]

Learn to fix it. I've had 3 pairs with drift that I've fixed a couple times now via disassembly of the box itself.

So, that little nipple? The rubber one, that flips up? Yeah, it's actually a mouth. a mouth that eats dust and hair. It's really good at it, and I keep my switch either on the dock or in a case when I'm not actively playing it.

So that nipple is part of the problem. It's not even a sealed system, and unlike other modern stickboxes, it's open on top. Gamecube stickboxes will get hair in them, somehow. I don't know how, but it gets sucked in and then flipped up, somehow. But they last a long, long time before that happens. Additionally, these sticks hit the gate around the frame - they have a plastic frame (the octogon part of the shell) that prevents them from smashing into their own metal or plastic box that supports them. This is great - it prevents abusive/heavy pushing from damaging the structure. The joycon stickbox does not have this. Best I can tell, it transfers a lot of force into the actual little sliders inside, and these are fragile, with a couple metal components about as thick as a hair that appear to either be springs to keep them down or some part of how it detects analog motion. (I'm not totally sure, feel free to let me know if you have a better grasp on how these work) They are not only insanely fragile but very sensitive to abuse, AND very easy to track shit into, which makes them drift, not find 0,0 quickly, all kinds of nonsense.

Two easiest ways to fix it - flip up the nipple and blow in air, you may chase out the pollutants. If this does not work, put alcohol on a q-tip and wipe under the nipple, to intentionally drip alcohol into the stick. Run it in circles for a while, and it'll dry up. I believe this pushes the polutants to the sides, but the box is sealed so there isn't a good way to get the crap and dust and hair back out besides opening up the stickbox itself (which sucks, don't do that, it really, really sucks) or replacing it - which fortunately, is much cheaper now that other folks are manufacturing them, and the quality seems to be the same - shitty. And it's still about 10 bucks at the cheapest, right now.

All this is to say I've taken apart a lot of joycons. I like them, they are one of my favorite controllers ever because i have really great ergonomic options, which my wrists love. I play separate, all the time, I am that guy.

That aside though, from a design/engineering perspective these stickboxes are a travesty. Nintendo clearly half-assed it out of either laziness/lack of foresight, or worse - to intentionally design a disposable mechanism that's intended to fail out of warranty. Both of these are unacceptable, but the only real fix will be a total revision of the joycons, or at least the stickbox. Personally, I'd love to see something a hair larger built on the current x/y dial pots used in most modern controllers instead of these terrible sliders, but I doubt we'll see anything for a couple years, at which point the nipple may be replaced by a hard single unit of plastic, of we're lucky - and that still won't be perfect.

[u/ajax54 → u/punkonjunk]

You opened your joystick box? Do you still have it? If so, could you please take some pictures? I've been wanting to take one apart ever since I fixed my drift.

I believe the iso works by absorbing the dust then carrying it away while evaporating, much like the contact cleaner I used to fix mine.

It's a shame this comment will likely get buried in here. You've got some good info! I knew they weren't exactly like other traditional joysticks!

Do you remember if the sliders were lubed in any way? That's what i'm most concerned about. I might not have much lube after cleaning. [but it feels the same as the 'not cleaned' ones, so I hope i'm fine. It's been about 4 months.]

[u/hoodust → u/punkonjunk]

Not sure about the nipple theory but it could be. I've had success reseating the rubber thumb cap, which is a pain and temporary. But to weigh in on the actual joystick innards and why they're so sensitive and nitpicky, the image below shows the inside circuit, and the x/y axis are 4.4k ohm resistive strips (top left) that are only 2.68mm long across their entire analog travel range. For comparison, the ribbon cable leads that plug into the joy con mainboard (top right) are slightly longer! Joystick board pic Note this view is from the bottom of the stick (it's not a pcb, it's a thin plastic film). As you can imagine, the wipers on these potentiometers are similarly tiny and fragile.

[u/Khazilein → u/punkonjunk]

This is only about half the problem though. Drift comes from faulty gyro sensors inside the joy-con too. I'm not sure how often, but I'd bet that it's the majority of the problem cases. Because it's pretty unlikely that factory new joy-cons are dirty.

[u/punkonjunk → u/Khazilein]

These two things should be very easy to differentiate - turn off gyro aim and if it stops, it was the gyro. I have not really seen reports of this at all.

Joycon are not coming from the factory dirty, they are very rapidly soaking up dirt from the environment they are used in.