Pico2W DualSense 5 Bridge

中文

Turn a Raspberry Pi Pico2W (or other compatible board) into a wireless adapter for the DualSense (DS5) controller.

This repository only implements the core functionality of DS5Dongle — making a wireless controller appear as a wired connection. For additional features, please refer to Community Fork

Overview

This project enables the Raspberry Pi Pico2W (or other compatible board, e.g. the Waveshare RP2350B-Plus-W) to function as a Bluetooth bridge for the DualSense controller, allowing wireless connectivity with enhanced haptics support.

Features

• 🎮 Full DualSense connectivity via Pico2W (or other compatible board)
• 🔊 Supports HD haptics (advanced vibration feedback)
• 🎧 Headset audio output — controller speaker and 3.5 mm jack
• 🎤 Headset microphone input — the controller mic is exposed as a USB audio input device
• 📡 Wireless Bluetooth bridging
• 🔘 BOOTSEL-button controller management — pair, reboot, enter BOOTSEL for flashing, or forget all pairings without unplugging
• ⚡ Runs at the stock 150 MHz clock — no overclock required

Getting Started

Get the firmware

You have two options:

• Download a pre-built .uf2 — grab the newest Releases build (ds5-bridge-<version>.uf2; other board builds are bundled in other board.zip; config_tool.py is attached there too). No tools needed.
• Build it yourself — see Build Instructions below (Windows users get a one-command script).

Flashing Firmware

1. Hold the BOOTSEL button on the Pico2W
2. Connect the Pico2W to your computer via USB
3. The device will mount as a USB storage device
4. Drag and drop the .uf2 firmware file onto the device

The firmware also supports a reboot-to-BOOTSEL command: the Reboot to Bootloader button in the web config reboots the dongle into BOOTSEL mode without holding the physical button.

Pairing the Controller

1. Put the DualSense controller into Bluetooth pairing mode
2. Wait for the Pico2W to detect and connect
3. Once connected, the device will appear on the host system

You may need to replug the Pico when the controller is in pairing mode.

BOOTSEL button: switch, reboot, or clear controllers

While the firmware is running, the Pico's BOOTSEL button doubles as a controller and reset control — no unplugging or re-flashing needed:

• Short press (click):
  • If a controller is connected, the current one is disconnected (its pairing is kept, so it can reconnect later). Use this to free the dongle for a different already-paired controller.
  • If nothing is connected, a 30-second scan starts to pair a new controller. Put the DualSense into pairing mode (hold PS + Create/Share until the light bar flashes) while the scan runs.
• Double click: Reboot the Pico — a normal firmware restart: re-enters pairing inquiry, drops the current connection, and recovers from a transient glitch. (Clicks register after a brief pause, to allow for a second/third click.)
• Triple click: Reboot into BOOTSEL — the dongle re-enumerates as a USB mass-storage drive so you can drag on a new .uf2, without holding BOOTSEL while plugging in.
• Long press (~1.5 s): Disconnect and forget every paired controller — all stored pairings are deleted and blacklisted so they won't silently auto-reconnect, even across a power cycle. The onboard LED flashes six times to confirm. To use a forgotten controller again, put it back into PS + Create/Share pairing mode.

Triple click is a software path into the bootloader; you can also still enter it the hardware way by holding BOOTSEL while plugging in the Pico (see Flashing Firmware above). All of these act on click / double / triple / long-press while the firmware is already running.

Configuration

You can modify the Pico settings via the web config.

• For release: https://ds5.awalol.eu.org
• For development: https://ds5-dev.awalol.eu.org

Community Fork

Audio Auto Haptics fork loteran/DS5Dongle

Adds real-time haptic feedback generated from game audio. The Pico listens to the sound stream and converts bass and impact sounds into DualSense rumble — no game-side haptic support needed.

DS5_Bridge SundayMoments/DS5_Bridge

More customization features, such as adjusting audio, haptics, trigger strength, lighting, button remapping, and shortcuts.

OLED Edition MarcelineVPQ/DS5Dongle-OLED-Edition

OLED Edition is a fork of awalol/DS5Dongle (upstream) that adds an optional Pico-OLED-1.3 128×64 display add-on with 11 screens (status, 4-slot multi-controller pairing, lightbar color picker with favorites and effect presets, trigger test, gyro tilt, touchpad, diagnostics, CPU/clock, BT signal strength, audio VU meters, and a persistent settings menu), plus a DS5 button-combo soft-reboot.

artzox/DS5Dongle

Building on Awalol's and Loteran's work to expand simulated haptics and add new features like native haptics anti-aliasing, audio-leak, trigger vibrations, trigger resistance, gyro-aiming, automated profile loading. Detail Introduction

DS4Dongle snipem/DS4Dongle

Firmware for the Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W that works for DualShock 4. Inspired by DS5Dongle with headset and microphone support and configuration abilities.

zurce/DS5Dongle-OLED

Notes

The Pico device will only be visible to the system after the controller is connected

Some behaviors depend on reconnection cycles to take effect

Microphone

The controller microphone is exposed as a USB audio input — "Headset Microphone" on Windows. After selecting it as your recording device, raise its input/capture level in your OS: Windows in particular often defaults it to 0 (or very low), which makes the mic seem dead even though it is working.

Low-battery LED indicator

When the connected DualSense reports its battery at or below 10% (and it is not charging), the Pico onboard LED switches from solid-on to a 1 Hz blink so you can see the warning at a glance. The LED returns to solid-on as soon as the controller is plugged in or its reported level rises again. The blink also fires when disable_pico_led is set — the warning is treated as critical and overrides the LED-off preference; the LED returns to its disabled (off) state once the battery recovers or the controller starts charging.

To opt out at build time, configure with -DENABLE_BATT_LED=OFF. Default is ON.

Pico W Version

Pico W only has haptics support, no speaker. You can enable Pico W firmware compilation with -DPICO_W_BUILD=ON, or download precompiled firmware from GitHub Actions.

Waveshare RP2350B-Plus-W

The Waveshare RP2350B-Plus-W is an RP2350B-based board with the RM2 wireless module (same CYW43 silicon as the Pico 2 W), 16 MB QSPI flash, and a USB-C connector. Build with:

cmake -S . -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
      -DPICO_SDK_PATH=<sdk> -DWAVESHARE_RP2350B_PLUS_W_BUILD=ON
cmake --build build --target ds5-bridge

Or download precompiled firmware from GitHub Actions.

USB Wake Feature

Wake-on-PS is now built into the standard firmware — there is no separate feat/usb-wake branch or ds5-bridge-wake.uf2 build. It is disabled by default; turn it on with the Wake PC from sleep on PS button toggle in the web config. When enabled, the dongle presents a HID keyboard interface and advertises USB remote wakeup so a controller button can wake the PC; when disabled, that interface is not enumerated. See Wake-on-PS for setup.

It is recommended to read #60 and #61 before using this feature.

Known Issues

• ⚠️ Audio may experience slight stuttering

Performance

The audio path — libopus encode/decode, the resampler, and the Bluetooth/USB packet handling on the hot path — executes from RAM instead of flash. This removes flash-fetch (XIP cache miss) stalls from the time-critical audio loop, which previously forced the RP2350 to be overclocked just to keep up with audio encoding.

As a result, the firmware runs the full audio path (haptics, speaker, 3.5 mm output, and microphone) at the stock 150 MHz clock — no overclock and no core-voltage bump.

Earlier releases required 320 MHz @ 1.2 V; overclocking is no longer needed. If you build for a different board and it fails to boot, reduce the CPU frequency (and/or raise the voltage) in CMakeLists.txt.

Build Instructions

Windows 11 (one command, no WSL)

You don't even need to clone this repo. Download just tools/build-windows.ps1 to any folder and run it in PowerShell:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\build-windows.ps1

(If you already have a checkout, run tools\build-windows.ps1 from the repo root instead — it detects and uses your local checkout.)

The script installs every prerequisite (CMake, Ninja, Python, Git and the ARM GNU toolchain — via winget, falling back to portable downloads if winget is unavailable), clones the project (if not run from a checkout) plus the pinned Pico SDK + TinyUSB into %USERPROFILE%\.ds5-build, builds the firmware, and drops ds5-bridge.uf2 next to the script and on your Desktop. It is safe to re-run; already-installed tools are skipped.

Build a fork or a specific ref with -Repo <url> / -Ref <branch|tag>.

Build a variant with -Variant debug.

Other platforms

To build from source manually:

1. Install the Pico SDK 2.3.1 and pin its TinyUSB submodule to 98741b55 — the SDK's own submodule still points at TinyUSB 0.18.0, which is too old:

   git -C <sdk>/lib/tinyusb fetch --depth 1 origin 98741b55959564746998d0453c32d87064629d7c
   git -C <sdk>/lib/tinyusb checkout --detach 98741b55959564746998d0453c32d87064629d7c

2. Initialise this repo's submodules: git submodule update --init --recursive

3. Configure and build with the standard Pico SDK toolchain: cmake -S . -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DPICO_SDK_PATH=<sdk> then cmake --build build --target ds5-bridge

On macOS, tools/build-macos.sh can prepare a repo-local Pico SDK checkout, prompt to install missing Homebrew build tools, initialize submodules, pin TinyUSB, and build the firmware:

tools/build-macos.sh

Use tools/build-macos.sh --clean to rebuild from scratch, or --sdk-dir <path> to use an existing SDK checkout. When using --sdk-dir, the script asks before checking that SDK out to the required Pico SDK and TinyUSB versions. If Homebrew's arm-none-eabi-gcc formula is installed without standard C headers, the script asks to install the complete gcc-arm-embedded cask and points CMake at that toolchain.

Custom button chords

The Button settings support up to 9 custom shortcut mappings. Each mapping assigns a trigger to a keyboard shortcut, media key, or firmware action.

Triggers:

• Button — single tap
• Button*2 — double tap; two presses within 250 ms
• Button1+Button2 — fires when both buttons become held, and can fire again after either is released
• Button1+Button2*2 — requires the chord to be formed twice

If a button has both single- and double-tap actions, the single-tap action is delayed until the 250 ms window closes. Otherwise, a single tap fires immediately.

Use the bundled configuration tool to view or edit the slots:

python tools/config_tool.py shortcut
python tools/config_tool.py shortcut 1=PS+Create:Win+PrintScreen
python tools/config_tool.py shortcut 2=PS+UP:VolumeUp
python tools/config_tool.py shortcut 3=PS+DOWN:VolumeDown
python tools/config_tool.py shortcut 4=PS:Win+G
python tools/config_tool.py shortcut 6=PS*2:Win+Tab
python tools/config_tool.py shortcut 1=off

Multiple slot assignments can be passed in one command. Changes are saved to the Button sector by default; use --no-save for a RAM-only update.

Actions:

• Keyboard — modifiers plus one key, such as Win+Shift+S, Win+PrintScreen, Win+G, or F13. Raw HID usage IDs such as 0x16 are also accepted.
• Media — VolumeUp, VolumeDown, Mute, PlayPause, Next, Prev, Stop, BrightnessUp, or BrightnessDown. These use the Consumer Control HID interface and take no modifiers.
• Firmware — bt_disconnect disconnects the currently connected controller.

Set enable_keyboard=1 and reconnect USB to enable keyboard and media actions. Firmware actions do not require the USB HID interfaces.

Limitations:

• Trigger buttons are not swallowed. They still reach the game, so a chord using PS may also open the Steam overlay or Game Bar. Prefer buttons without a global binding.
• Two DPad directions cannot form a chord because the controller reports only one DPad direction at a time; the tool rejects such pairs.
• Due to a Windows limitation, volume actions adjust the DualSense audio endpoint only; they cannot adjust the currently selected default audio device.

Wake-on-PS (optional)

Enabling the Wake PC from sleep on PS button toggle in the web config makes the dongle present two extra HID interfaces (a boot keyboard and a consumer control) and advertise USB remote wakeup. A controller button press while the host is suspended then injects an F15 keypress, waking the PC from S3 sleep. F15 was chosen because it has no default Windows or app binding — a stray fire never inserts characters or triggers shortcuts. The toggle is off by default, and those interfaces are only enumerated while wake or the explicit enable_keyboard setting is enabled.

Scope: S3 only. Modern Standby (S0ix) is not supported. To check your machine, run powercfg /a — you need "Standby (S3)" listed under available sleep states.

After enabling the toggle (then Reconnect USB so the interface re-enumerates):

1. Open Device Manager → the new HID Keyboard Device (and its parent USB Composite Device) → Properties → Power Management → tick "Allow this device to wake the computer."
2. Verify with powercfg /devicequery wake_armed.
3. Sleep the PC; press any button on the controller; the PC should wake within ~1 s.
4. After a wake, powercfg /lastwake should attribute the wake to the HID Keyboard Device.

Wake also needs SelectiveSuspendEnabled = 1 (a REG_DWORD) on the controller's audio interface (MI_00). Windows only writes it at first install, so a runtime toggle may need it set manually. It lives under each per-instance Device Parameters key:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USB\VID_054C&PID_0CE6&MI_00\<instance>\Device Parameters
    SelectiveSuspendEnabled    (REG_DWORD) = 1

PID_0CE6 is the DualSense (PID_0DF2 for the Edge), and <instance> is device/port-specific (e.g. 6&212078ea&1&0000), so there can be more than one node — set it on every one. An elevated PowerShell one-liner that covers all present instances:

Get-ChildItem 'HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USB\VID_054C&PID_0CE6&MI_00' | ForEach-Object {
  New-ItemProperty "$($_.PSPath)\Device Parameters" SelectiveSuspendEnabled -Value 1 -PropertyType DWord -Force }

Then Reconnect USB or reboot. (Re-installing the device — clearing its Windows device cache and replugging — also makes Windows write the value itself.)

Roadmap

• Please check out DS5Dongle plan

Community

• Join the Discord server: Discord Server
• If you have a bug, please open an issue instead.

References

• rafaelvaloto/Pico_W-Dualsense — Project inspiration
• egormanga/SAxense — Bluetooth Haptics POC
• https://controllers.fandom.com/wiki/Sony_DualSense - DualSense data report structure documentation
• Paliverse/DualSenseX — Speaker report packet
• Nielk1’s research report and packet samples