Nintendo Switch Joy-Con: A guide to effectively clean your controllers a

The legendary Joy-Con for Nintendo Switch are the console’s controller par excellence. However, there are many users who are looking for other alternatives such as the Pro Controller and the best controllers for Nintendo Switch . In this article we will review how you can effectively clean the Joy-Con to avoid problems with the device. We also invite you to read our guide article on the use of Joy-Con and controls on your iPhone and iPad that use iOS 16.

Summary [ hide ]

• 1How to clean Joy-Con effectively
• 2What you should not do when cleaning the Joy-Con
• 3How to react if we see that a Joy-Con does not work

How to clean Joy-Con effectively

Joy-Con are very sensitive devices that require basic and precise care . This is why we have to start by superficially cleaning the controls, since dirt tends to accumulate very quickly between the buttons and levers, causing the device’s operation to be impaired in the long run. That is why the steps we can follow to carry out this superficial cleaning are:

• Use alcohol (preferably 70%) to disinfect parts and clean dirt.
• Dampen a cloth with the alcohol and gently clean the outside of the Joy-Con.
• In areas of the Joy-Con where it is difficult to get the cloth into, you can use cotton swabs and also dip them in alcohol. They can be very useful especially between the levers and the trigger gaps.
• If you consider it necessary, you can remove the alcohol with a dry cloth (avoid using paper or napkins).

What you should not do when cleaning the Joy-Con

It is very normal that many people become impatient when seeing that the remains of dirt do not jump out of the least accessible places on the device , and that we sometimes feel the impulse to use toothpicks or tweezers. We must bear in mind that the Joy-Con are very sensitive and we run the risk of damaging them if we use this type of tools :

• Scratches and cuts on the surface
• Wear to buttons, levers and triggers.
• Breakage of key parts of the device.
• Ineffective cleaning.

Hence, the use of tweezers, chopsticks and other sharp objects is highly discouraged . We will not clean the Joy-Con well and we also run the risk of breaking and damaging it, requiring future repairs, and leading to us not being able to have a good gaming experience.

How to react if we see that a Joy-Con does not work

Before getting into the worst, we must be aware that the Switch controls can break, and have often suffered from the dreaded “ drift ” , which is the unbalance of the levers, causing erroneous movements and an unpleasant gaming experience.

Dirt accumulated on any electronic device can shorten its useful life, which is why it is very important that we know that weekly cleaning is practically a requirement to avoid future problems. There will be times when our Joy-Con may inevitably fail. We must follow these steps:

• Stay calm and locate the source of the problem.
• When a Joy-Con fails, the problem is usually internal to the controller.
• Before opening the hardware, let’s try to check for updates for the device.
• If this doesn’t work we will have to recalibrate the Joy-Con.
• If none of this has worked, pre-clean the controller with a dry cloth before opening it.
• If we open it we have to know that it is a very sensitive device. Clean the inside carefully (preferably with dry cotton swabs).
• If none of this has worked, we could take it to Nintendo Support or an electronic hardware repair store.