Summary
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You can use a Raspberry Pi Pico 2W as a DS5 dongle to restore DualSense haptics and adaptive triggers to PC.
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Windows Bluetooth drops DualSense features; The Pico 2W bridge retains 4-channel audio for full functionality.
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The DS5Dongle firmware on an overclocked 2W Pico is cheap, easy to configure, and works wirelessly.
One of the coolest things about the DIY community is that if you’re having a problem connecting two pieces of hardware, they’ve probably already figured out a way to connect the two. It will usually feature a Raspberry Pi or an ESP32 which falls somewhere in between, but whichever computing device you choose, you can be sure that it will be cheap, easy to set up and, best of all, really useful at what it does.
This is the case of this Raspberry Pi Pico 2W project, which creates a PC dongle for the PlayStation 5 controller that Sony never manufactured. And while you can still use your PC’s Bluetooth connection, this dongle adds features you’d usually lose by going wireless.
5 Projects You Can Complete in a Weekend With the $8 Raspberry Pi Pico 2W
The Raspberry Pi Pico is small but powerful, and you can create a number of projects using it over the weekend.
This Raspberry Pi Pico 2W dongle does better with Sony controllers than Sony
It’s not expensive too
This cool project came to our attention via SlaveKnightSoman on the Raspberry Pi subreddit. They were tired of having a poor experience using their PS5 controller on their PC and decided to scour the internet for a solution. Indeed, they managed to find the ideal solution:
I spent way too much time trying to get the “PS5 experience” on PC without being tethered by a 10-foot cable. Windows Bluetooth removes haptic feedback and adaptive triggers because it does not support the 4-channel audio bandwidth required by DualSense.
I found a project that completely solves this problem using a Raspberry Pi Pico 2W as a hardware bridge.
The project they stumbled upon was Awalol’s DS5Dongle. This lets you turn an overclocked 2W Pi Pico into a makeshift PS5 wireless dongle, and since it doesn’t go through the usual Bluetooth channels, you also get haptic feedback and triggers. So, SlaveKnightSoman set to work implementing it on his own board, and sure enough, it works wonderfully. Watch the video above for proof, which shows the most advanced features present and working.
Someone built their own dual-screen handheld with a Raspberry Pi 5CM, and so can you
Recreate a classic handheld computer with a Raspberry Pi.