Acquiring a small remote trigger via Bluetooth for your mobile device can be interesting and highly recommended. Especially if you dedicate yourself to night photography or simply want to take self-portraits in a more comfortable way. Now, if you don’t want to spend more money, do you know that you can connect the Nintendo Switch Joycons and use them together with the camera application of your smartphone?
What are remote triggers
When using the camera of your mobile phone there are several recommendations to always obtain the best results. One of them is, along with the use of a tripod, to have a remote trigger . A small device that allows you to activate the shutter button of the camera application when you are away from the phone.
This is ideal for different types of photography such as night photography, long exposure or self-portraits, among others. Because thanks to a shutter you can make sure that the camera is not going to move when you touch the shooting icon on the screen or press the volume button that is also often used on phones as a physical button to fire the camera.
And it is that, in situations where the camera of your smartphone needs to capture more light or keep the diaphragm open for a longer time, any minimal vibration would end up resulting in a shaky photograph, with trepidation and ultimately blurred and with lower quality than it really could. get.
So having one of these pots is not only practical, it is also the best you can buy if you like photography. In addition, they are usually very inexpensive and there are even small tripods for mobiles that already include them and even allow them to be used as a selfie stick (selfie stick) like this Xiaomi Mi Selfie Stick .
Use the Joycon as a remote trigger
Now let’s say you don’t want to spend more money on any accessory like this for whatever reason. Or that you simply don’t have time to go buy or order one online, because you need to take a series of photos right now. In those cases, you may be interested to know that the Nintendo Switch controls could act as a remote trigger.
To use one of the Nintendo Switch Joycon as a trigger, all you have to do is pair it through the Bluetooth connection. A process that is as simple as you might already imagine and that will not take you more than a minute or two at most. The time it takes to unlock your smartphone, go to the Bluetooth settings and select the Joycon when you see it listed.
Still, the complete and step-by-step process would be as follows:
- Make sure your Joycon has a battery
- Unlock your smartphone and go to Settings
- Enter the Bluetooth section and check that this connectivity option is also activated
- Now press and hold the Sync button on the Joycon until the different indicator lights on the controller turn on.
- Back on your mobile phone, Settings> Bluetooth, find the Joycon and hit connect
- Once selected, in a matter of seconds, both devices should already be paired
- Clever? Well, you can start using it as a remote trigger.
Now that the controller is connected to your smartphone, the next step is to start using it as the remote trigger we are looking for. Of course, there are some details that are important and you should know, because a good part of the experience will depend a little on the phone itself and the operating system plus the customization layer that you use.
What’s more, there may be times when it doesn’t work as such and the only action that the remote performs once paired with the phone is the home button or back button. That is, depending on the device, the Joycon buttons will behave differently. So you will have to try, but if it works you can operate the camera remotely with the press of a button and even have access to other functions with the rest of the buttons.
TIL you can pair a joycon with your phone and use it as a shutter button to take photos remotely. from NintendoSwitch
An example of this is Samsung , their smartphones allow you to use the X and Y buttons to zoom in and zoom out (zoom in and out). So everything will be a matter of pressing to test if there is some type of action that is carried out when doing it.
Otherwise, outside of the camera app these controls could also allow some integration with the operating system. Check if that happens or not. In the event that the answer is positive, then assesses if it brings you any benefit or if on the contrary you have to be even more vigilant so as not to mess it up with some fortuitous pulsation.
Is it possible to use other game controllers as a trigger?
Seeing that the Nintendo Switch controllers can be used as a remote trigger, surely you have wondered if you could also use the control of a PS4 or Xbox One. After all, these are also Bluetooth controllers and can be connected to the smartphone to through that connection.
The answer is no, at least in the tests we have been able to carry out they are detected as an input device and the camera application does not respond to your keystrokes. Even so, it may also be something similar to what happens with the Joycon and some terminals, that its compatibility is more limited. Even so, being bulkier controls are likely to lose a bit of the appeal of the Joycon, much more comfortable for when you want to take a self-portrait for example.
