Guides / Controllers
Check controller battery
Open the flyout. Connected controllers are listed under CONTROLLERS, with battery where Windows knows it.
The right-hand side shows the battery percentage when Windows reports one. When it doesn't, you get how the pad is attached instead — Wired or Wireless — rather than a blank space that looks broken.
At 20% or below the figure turns amber. That's the only use of that colour anywhere in the app, so it never competes with anything for your attention.
Disconnecting a wireless controller
Hover a Bluetooth-connected controller and an unlink button appears on the right. Clicking it disconnects the pad — the same six-second Bluetooth operation as a speaker.
Wired controllers don't offer it, because unplugging is right there.
Why some controllers show no battery
Because Windows doesn't always know. The battery figure comes from Windows' own device properties, and whether it's there depends on the pad, how it's connected, and its driver:
- A controller plugged in over USB generally reports nothing — it's charging, not discharging.
- Some wireless pads report a level, and some report nothing at all.
- Xbox controllers on the official wireless dongle often report differently from the same pad over Bluetooth.
Switchboard shows whatever Windows has and says how the pad is connected when there's nothing to show. It doesn't guess.
Controllers are shown, not managed
There's no remapping, no calibration, no LED colour. Those are jobs for the vendor's own software, and doing them badly would be worse than not doing them. This section answers one question — is my pad about to die? — and stays out of the way otherwise.
Only connected controllers are listed
Unlike a Bluetooth speaker, there's no useful "paired but off" row for a gamepad. A controller that's off has a button on it and is usually in someone's hand — a PC can't switch it on, so offering to would be a lie.
What counts as a controller
Anything Windows identifies as a gamepad or joystick: DualSense, DualShock, Xbox pads, third-party controllers, flight sticks. Switchboard asks Windows the same question Windows asks itself, so there's no list of supported devices to fall off.
One physical controller sometimes exposes several separate devices — a DualSense presents its pad, touchpad and motion sensors individually. They're grouped back into one row.