Hello everyone, I'm relatively new to Arduinos. I work for a company who makes communication device for people with physical disabilities. Currently we have a chip that allows our software to tell the chip to send a keyboard or mouse command to a desktop computer, much like the Arduino Leonardo can. One of the biggest requests we get is the ability to control a game console with the communication device (the communication device has accessibility features like eye tracking for people who can't use their hands). I'm wondering since we already have the ability to send keyboard commands from the communication device, would it be possible to use an Arduino as a middle man and have the communication device send a command to the Arduino and then have the Arduino send a command to the game console?
Thanks in advance for any assistance!
So your device knows what xbox buttons or joy sticks to output, such as press the "X" button or left stick up half of the way, and you are looking for a way to have these commands sent to an xbox so it would think it receives these commands from an actual controller? Did I get this correctly? And you think Arduino Leonardo would act as an "xbox controller"?
Arduino Leonardo CAN act as a generic game controller. I believe there is a library but I've not used it myself (maybe once twice a while ago):
This should work on a PC but not necessarily on a console. I think a console is probably more restrictive on what USB controllers it accepts. I would encourage you to try this library sample code:
- first on a PC because it's supposed to work.
- Then try this on an xbox because I think xbox shares some code base with windows 10 (why making two same but different things, right?). If that works, great!
- You can try PS but that's a whole different system I guess.
In case you're stuck at one of the steps I recommend, you can come back with more specific questions I could help. I have a lot of experience with emulating USB devices and hosting USB devices from consulting projects. I know the best way to emulate a USB device using an Arduino Leonardo but it involves a fair amount of consulting work and at the development stage it requires some special equipment. The outcome would be a device easy to use and cheap to make.
If you can make your way through step 2 without hiring a consultant, that would be great for your company! I can provide some free help. It sounds like you're doing important work for disabled people. I watched a NetFlix documentary about video games and it mentioned a similar company bringing gaming to disabled people with specialized controllers. It's very long and mostly in Spanish and Italian where they talked too fast for me to read the captions 
Close. My device can only send simple keyboard and mouse commands. Things like characters, modifier+character combinations, mouse movements and clicks. So essentially I'm looking to plug a keyboard into something (I think an Arduino) press "X" on the keyboard and have the Arduino send the Xbox's "X" equivalent to the Xbox. I am a programmer so the coding part is no problem, just don't know how to send commands that the Xbox understands.
OK, at least you're not a total beginner 
Your idea requires further refinement. If you plug a keyboard into an arduino, then that arduino needs to be able to host a USB device such as the said keyboard. This requires the arduino to have USB host function set. That's not just a bunch of libraries. It requires hardware that almost none of the standard arduino boards have natively or bring out the pins to USB port to make the connection possible without breakout boards. Only the ones with SAMD or better have a chance to be able to do that. It's not an easy library to use, even for a programmer. Here is the library:
This is not one of Arduino's own libraries. I don't think arduino llc is pushing USB host capabilities any time soon. Lots of stuff and hard to understand without a manual telling you what each part is doing in the foreground and background. I only have one SAMD arduino compatible device but it does work as a USB host with a keyboard or a barcode scanner. I might have another one but I didn't check last time I bought a few dev boards to add to my backlogs of what new boards are out there. I use a different set of hardware, MAX3421E, a dedicated USB host IC.
OK so if the above is what you want, arduino connecting to a keyboard, maybe not, but the following is what you NEED, an arduino that can act as a USB device that the xbox can host.
Ardiuno Leonardo and all the SAMD arduinos can do that on a PC. Have in mind that the SAMD arduinos only have one USB hardware so they either act as a device to connect to xbox, or they act as a host to connect to that keyboard you want they to connect, but never both. It's like your smartphone's USB-OTG, a mini-host that can connect to keyboard mouse but also act as a device if you connect your phone to a computer. If you want both, simultaneously, as I suspect, pressing X to send X button to xbox, you need one dedicated USB device to emulate an xbox controller, and another dedicated USB host to connect to the keyboard. I don't know any arduino board that has two usb controllers with at least one that can act as a host so it's likely you will either revise your idea to use a keyboard as input or add a host or device class IC to an arduino to have two usb controllers, one acting as a host and other as device.
USB is not something that mysteriously makes things that don't know how to interconnect make connections just because they all are USB. Only hosts can connect to devices and PC/Xbox are hosts. Devices like a keyboard, can't connect to another device, such as another keyboard, or mouse, regardless how you try. It's a hardware limitation, not software.
Regarding host and device, a device stack software is a lot simpler than a host stack software so my advice is to use Arduino Leonardo to emulate a device, have your arduino IDE open and type in keys and let Leo emulate game controller keys. If that works, you can think of whether it is necessary to have Arduino host a keyboard, or maybe have your existing device tell arduino what game controller buttons to press, over serial connection, instead of over USB.
This is hard to DIY because consoles require cryptographic handshakes with their controllers. Commercial devices exist such as by Cronus and Console Tuner. They usually advertise something like use an Xbox One controller on PlayStation 4 or vice versa. Some can hook up keyboards, mice, and joysticks to consoles as well.
You may also wish to look at instructional videos produced by a UK charity about using eye gaze devices and speech-to-text with game consoles.
Hello, thank you very much both of you for the information! I had planned on using two different Arduinos for this project, one that I plug the keyboard (or my communication device) into, running cable from that board to a Leonardo via Tx and Rx pins, then plugging the Leonardo into the Xbox. However, what customcontroller said about needing a handshake has me worried. I just ordered a Leonardo to start playing with so I'll see what kind of rabbit hole I end up in. Thank you again for your help and I'll let you know how it goes!
customcontroller,
Thanks for the info! I checked out XIM and that seems to be an interesting niche product that brad3260 could use, albeit being expensive at $129 each. It allows you to connect your keyboard and mouse to it and an actual xbox controller, then key bind via an app so your keyboard presses turn in to xbox controller button pushes. This means if you have an arduino Leonardo send keyboard strokes using its standard library, you could get an end-to-end solution without much engineering. I wish I had an XIM just to pick it apart. I can already see in my head how this simple device works, about $29 of hardware and $100 worth of firmware and some hype
XIM looks good. None of these gadgets are cheap but developing something similar from scratch would take a lot of time and resources. Especially, if the requirement is to support XBox One, XBox S, PS4, PS5, and Nintendo Switch.
Great! I hope that the XIM will accept a Leonardo as a keyboard just fine. Just in case it won't accept the Leonardo as a keyboard, you can strip the composite interface in Leonardo and only leave the HID boot keyboard interface there. Your initial work is rather easy, get one XIM, have your Leonardo run one keyboard example code to press the w key, have XIM app map that into direction pad forward. Hope that works and please let us know.
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