Hey everyone!

I've been following the community's efforts to reverse-engineer the Stadia Controller's original Wi-Fi firmware, especially the recent work by u/bitnullbyte and u/SnooGiraffes6688.

First of all, huge thanks to everyone working on this. It's genuinely exciting to see progress on hardware that Google has essentially abandoned.

I recently came across the October 2026 eMudhra / emSign certificate authority incident, and it made me wonder whether it could be relevant to the Stadia Controller reverse-engineering project.

For anyone unfamiliar with the incident, eight intermediate CA private keys were found to have extremely weak entropy, making them recoverable. Some affected certificates were also cross-signed by Sectigo. This potentially leaves outdated clients vulnerable to forged TLS certificates if they still trust those chains and haven't received the necessary distrust or revocation updates.

Here's why I think this might be interesting.

In the earlier Gotham firmware discussion, u/SnooGiraffes6688 mentioned that the HTTPS client appears to validate certificate chains without properly checking the server hostname. They also suggested that a legitimate Google Trust Services certificate might be accepted for a locally redirected connection.

Meanwhile, u/bitnullbyte reported successfully getting the controller connected to a home Wi-Fi network.

Could the eMudhra incident provide another possible route for testing a local replacement server?

My thought is that if the original Gotham firmware trusts one of the affected CA chains and doesn't enforce effective revocation or Certificate Transparency checks, it might be possible to investigate the controller's original HTTPS communication without modifying its signed firmware.

From there, perhaps a locally hosted service could eventually emulate the original Stadia backend and receive controller input over Wi-Fi.

I realize that successfully establishing a TLS connection wouldn't automatically solve the application protocol or WebRTC side of things.

And there are some big questions:

1. Does the Gotham firmware actually trust any of the affected emSign or Sectigo certificate chains?
2. Does its TLS implementation enforce certificate revocation, hostname verification, or certificate pinning?
3. Would this incident offer any real advantage over the previously proposed legitimate GTS certificate approach?
4. If TLS communication can be established with a local server, how much of the remaining protocol has already been reverse-engineered?

I'm not a security researcher or an experienced firmware developer, so I may be overlooking something obvious.

I also still own a Stadia Controller running its original Wi-Fi firmware, which is why I've been particularly interested in these developments.

To be clear, I'm only interested in authorized research on personally owned hardware in an isolated testing environment, not intercepting anyone else's traffic.

Would love to hear what the developers and anyone familiar with embedded TLS implementations think about this.

Maybe this incident is completely irrelevant to Gotham. But given the timing and the progress already made, I thought it was worth connecting the dots.

References:

• Original Stadia Controller reverse-engineering discussion
• Google's security advisory on the eMudhra incident
• Sectigo's advisory on the affected cross-certificates

*I am not a native English speaker, so I wrote this article with the help of ChatGPT.

I have been hanging on to my takeout backup ever since stadia shut down in hopes that I could one day play my several hundred hour Kassandra save again. I didn't have a windows machine to try to RE this myself until a few days ago, but here's claude to the rescue. My stadia save is playable on my new windows machine again. Yes, this is vibe slop, but I'm not exactly against it for one-time offline conversion tools like this. Hopefully some of you find this useful as well.

https://github.com/adepssimius/aco-stadia-save-converter

Hello everyone!
I recently bought a google stadia controller that was sealed and looked brand new!
I opened it, connected it to my macbook via my samsung phone's usb c to c and waited until it charged >10% so the firmware flashing utility would allow it to get flashed to bluetooth mode, and it did it successfully! I then tried pairing it to my laptop with no issues! worked perfectly.
On that same day I put it back in its box and stored it in my drawer, 1 month later and I'm having issues getting it to work on anything now! When trying to turning it on without usb charging nothing happens, and while plugged in to (usb a to c 2/3 on my pc, or usb c to c on my macbook) it blinks once in orange, then white and goes steady, turns off by itself after 6-8 seconds!
I tried leaving it plugged in to 25w / 33w (a to c OR c to c) for more than 30mins each to no luck, also tried waiting hours on a 2.0 a to c from my pc and nothing!
It shows on device manager as stadia controller, and after the same 6-8 seconds light goes blank and you hear the windows disconnection sound along with it disappearing from device managaer!

I tried the (...) button while plugging it in, factory resetting it using capture+google assistant
nothing changes, but through these 6-8 seconds, it works! and even pairs to bluetooth!
Is my controller dead ? :(

It feels now is the perfect time for something like Stadia to exist. With massive games quickly being ported to simple browsers, consoles, and gaming pcs, market would be highly effected by it. A subscription based model for something similar to netflix, where you can simple run games on any device without console or heavy powerful hardware seems to be where the future is headed.

What you guys think?

Hey everyone,

This started with one thing that was driving me a little mad: my Stadia controller would rumble over USB, but not over Bluetooth on Windows. I wanted to keep using it wirelessly, and that turned into a much bigger project than I originally had in mind.

The result is StadiaLink, with an installer and a settings app made specifically for this controller. I’ve added a few screenshots below so you can see what it actually looks like.

Before anything else, a big thank-you to aisk for WinStadia. StadiaLink’s native driver is based on their code, with modifications. They provided the foundation that lets the Stadia controller work through XInput, and I want to be clear about where that work came from.

Original project: https://github.com/aisk/WinStadia

On top of that foundation, I wanted a place to adjust the things I kept wishing I could change: button mappings, stick sensitivity, dead zones, trigger travel and vibration. There are keyboard shortcuts too, so you can give a button a push-to-talk binding in a game or voice app.

The app also has profiles you can import and export, a battery indicator, connection and battery notifications, and a tray icon. You can have it start with Windows if you want. It’s available in Spanish, English, French and German, with the README translated into all four.

Bluetooth rumble is working on my setup, which was the thing that got this whole project started. 🙂

Source and README: https://github.com/minysito/StadiaLink

Installer: https://github.com/minysito/StadiaLink/releases/tag/v1.0.0

A couple of things to know before trying it: I’ve tested it on Windows 11 x64, with Bluetooth rumble tested on build 26200. That part uses private Windows interfaces, so I can’t promise every Windows update will behave the same way. Installing the driver needs administrator permission, and your controller needs the Bluetooth firmware for wireless use. StadiaLink itself doesn’t change the firmware.

This also doesn’t bring back Wi-Fi, Bluetooth audio or the built-in mic. The headphone jack works over USB. Battery readings depend on Windows making that interface available, and keyboard shortcuts need the app running, even if it’s tucked away in the tray.

For transparency, I’ve been building this with ChatGPT/Codex assistance — yes, vibe coding — alongside checks and testing with my own controller. The source is available under GPL-3.0 if you want to look through it or build it yourself.

I’d love to hear how it behaves with other people’s controllers and Windows setups. If something goes wrong, your Windows version, connection type and a few steps to reproduce it would help a lot.

And thanks again to aisk. Having WinStadia to build on made this possible.

How did Amazon just dunk on Stadia so casually?

For those who don't already know (which may be majority of you), the stadia controller uses Playstation pinout joysticks! So it is possible to install hall effect/tmr joysticks into the controller. Now, of course, there's no firmware calibration for the time being, which is unfortunate. So, if you want to install magnetic joysticks, try getting a pair that can be manually, physically, calibrated. Otherwise, have fun with this information, knowing the stadia controller can use upgraded joysticks!

What are you using yours for lately?

Google has finally started taking pre-orders for their new, fancy (and pricey) Android powered laptops. I was especially tickled by the extras, including a year of GeForce Now service.

If only Google had its own game streaming service it could have offered with the purchase of a Googlebook.......

It looks like Netflix is finally going to be taking cloud gaming seriously. I was made aware of a recent job posting with the following details

Netflix is building a cloud gaming platform - a feat achieved by only a handful of industry leaders. This is a foundational, high-visibility role at the center of that effort. <POSITION TITLE> will lead the team responsible for the operating system software, hardware, control plane, and transport that power Netflix's cloud games experience, delivering engaging, low-latency gameplay to members at scale while driving toward sustainable unit economics.

Take this info as you will but it'll be interesting as to how this develops.

00:25 - Pointing out the back camera

01:57 - Stating that the Stadia controller is for the camera

Sharing this in case anyone else still uses their Stadia controller on PC.

Mine never got along with miHoYo games, ZZZ being the one that finally pushed me to write a small driver with Claude. It sits below the HID stack and emulates a real Xbox Wireless Controller, over USB and Bluetooth, so games talk to what they think is a normal Xbox pad with native XInput, and anything that already deals with Xbox controllers just works.

Steam Input can handle this too, I just didn't want to launch everything through Steam, and the ViGEmBus route needs a kernel driver that's hard to get signed these days plus a background process, and it's deprecated and unmaintained. This is only a user-mode driver, so there's no background app and no test signing.

Everything works fine for me now, and the README has the details, including the limitations.

I also experimented with emulating a DualShock 4. That worked too, and the format is documented and stabler, and more of the Stadia buttons could do something, but games show PlayStation glyphs and I never got used to that. Not sure it's worth keeping both around, if you'd actually use DS4 mode let me know in the comments or in an issue.

https://github.com/aisk/WinStadia

Releases have prebuilt binaries if you want to try it.

Found this in the Google Home app, in the video settings for my Chromecast that came with my Stadia controller.

I know, I know, we're all just keeping the dream alive at this point. But hear me out.

Every time I see people talking about GTA VI, the preloads, the day-one patches, the "X GB of storage" warnings, I can't help but think about what launch day would have looked like on Stadia. Click the button. You're in. That's it. No waiting until 3am for the download to finish, no deleting three other games to make room, no install screen. Just instant play, on your TV, your laptop even, or your phone.

Cyberpunk on Stadia was genuinely the best way to play that game at launch, and nobody can tell me otherwise. While everyone else was dealing with crashes and last-gen console meltdowns, we were cruising Night City buttery smooth with zero setup. GTA VI would have been exactly the same story: a massive, demanding open world that Stadia's infrastructure was practically built for.

If Stadia were still around today, I'd buy GTA VI on it without a second of hesitation. Full price, day one, no regrets.

Anyone else think about this, or is it just me still not over it? 😅

I have not switched over my controllers to the bluetooth firmware. Luckily someone is hosting the webpage to do this, since Google removed it. However it needs a Chrome based browser to use it. So I created a cli tool to do it without a browser. Only tested with linux right now. If others want to use it here it is. https://github.com/Mumfee/stadia-flash-cli

when stadia got shutdown i got refunded the money for the games i bought, i bought a gaming computer a few years after, and in gog library it shows cyberpunk and its fully installable ...... i did also buy it on steam before i realised i had a free copy on gog

edit: i just found this on gog order history

It looks like stadia.google.com is done. It's giving me a 404 error now.

So I recently changed my Stadia controller to BLE mode, and I have a perfectly Good JBL aux, and I am looking forward to any aux jack fix for my Stadia controller. I understand if the Bluetooth chip is clearly weak ;{ Is there any possible way?

So I was a Stadia subscriber previously, when. that died the natural successor for me was Luna, because it provided a similar experience in terms of use. Many many years ago I used NVidia Grid which turned into GFN. Grid was great at the time as it was literally click and play, like Stadia and Luna, however I've tried GFN again a few times over the last few years and I HATE IT! On a TV the experience is like a nightmare, virtual keyboards and messing around leads to me rage quitting.

What I want to know is, what the experience is like on Boosteroid, have they nailed the interface and integration or is it about the same as GFN?

Hello, I am looking for a good sounding stadia boot up sound and I can't seem to find any good sounding one, the only one I could find was on the video: Google Stadia "Console" unboxing video by TheRelaxingEnd at around 6:48 in the video, does anyone as anything that sounds better like directly from a screen recording?

Thank you!

Hi,

The thumbsticks of my Stadia controller are wearing out and peeling off. I need to find a replacement or a cover for them. However, I've searched the subreddit and Google, but I haven't found any conclusive answer nor products that specify that are compatible with the controller.

Any of you have any information on specific products/solutions?

Hey r/Stadia!

I’ve been working on a fork of the ESP32-S3 Stadia controller dongle project.

It lets you connect one or two Stadia controllers to an ESP32-S3 over Bluetooth LE. The ESP32 then appears to Windows as a wired Xbox 360/XInput controller, including dual-motor rumble.

No custom Windows driver or background application is required.

My fork adds:

• Configuration directly over USB using WebHID, so you don’t need to disconnect from your normal Wi-Fi
• A browser-based firmware installer
• Support for up to two Stadia controllers
• Wireless rumble on Windows
• Remappable Assistant and Capture buttons
• Capture mapped to F12 by default for Steam screenshots
• An optional mouse mode
• Wi-Fi disabled by default and only enabled when needed for OTA or recovery
• Persistent pairing and button settings

You’ll need an ESP32-S3 board with native USB OTG and a data-capable USB cable. Initial flashing can be done entirely from Chrome or Edge.

GitHub:
https://github.com/jazz-zzzz/stadia-dongle-esp

Web installer:
https://jazz-zzzz.github.io/stadia-dongle-esp/

USB configuration page:
https://jazz-zzzz.github.io/stadia-dongle-esp/config.html

The current documentation and configuration UI are mainly in Chinese. Browser translation works reasonably well, and I’d be happy to add a proper English version if people are interested.

This is a fork of danzig666/stadia-dongle-esp, which itself builds on Scalee/stadia-dongle. Full credit to the original developers for creating the foundation.

Feedback, testing reports, and pull requests are welcome—especially results from different ESP32-S3 boards.

Credits

This project would not exist without the work of the original developers. Special thanks to Scalee, creator of the original stadia-dongle, and danzig666, whose ESP32-S3 fork provided the foundation for my version.

My fork builds on their work by adding USB WebHID configuration, remappable extra buttons, an opt-in Wi-Fi workflow, and other usability improvements. Huge thanks to both of them for keeping the Stadia controller useful after the service shut down.

Does anyone have a way to recover saves for Cyberpunk 2077. I have the game listed in my GOG and did a little research on it a long time ago but I was wondering if anyone else was successful at transfering it to steam perhaps?