Connecting two wireless gamepads to Arduino Uno

Projects Networking, Protocols, and Devices
1

Hello,

I am experimenting with Arduino and very happy until now. I am a beginner, though - so apologies if my question maybe has an obvious answer (looked here, google, ... nothing).

I did a small game that is controlled via Arduino Uno and a single SNES gamepad (with cable), which right now is wired to the Arduino. So far so good, now I want instead to connect two wireless controllers to it (like these https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32949582044.html ).

I cannot get my head over what is the best approach to do this. Can I just slam a USB splitter into the existing USB port, plug in the receivers and read whatever is coming in? Or should I connect some other device to the Arduino that replaces the two receivers?

Thanks for any pointers!

2

USB devices (mouse, gampad, keyboard, ..) always connect to a USB Host. Most microcontroller with USB support are device mode only. They cannot function as a USB Host. So you first need to find a USB Host capable chip. These are build into PCs, tablets or Raspberry Pi type of platforms with big OS e.g. Win/Linux. But there are some newer more powerful MCUs with USB Host support.

Then you need software support, since most people do not do this kind of stuff, it might be difficult to get support/examples ...

I see two alternative options.

  1. Search for a Arduino gampad. Somebody might have done what you need and provides a simple wire interface which connects some kind of wireless module.

  2. Look into Bluetooth LE. There are a few Bluetooth LE Arduino IDE compatible solution including three original from Arduino available.

Arduino Nano 33 BLE Sense

Arduino Nano 33 BLE

Arduino Nano 33 IoT