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JoyLink: Phone as Gamepad
Your phone becomes a real Bluetooth gamepad (no dongle)
Turning an Android phone into a real Bluetooth gamepad has long been a firmware lottery. JoyLink makes the phone itself the controller: Windows, Mac, Linux, Android TV and even another phone see a standard Bluetooth gamepad, with nothing to install. No dongle, no receiver app, no root. Xbox-style layout, touchpad, mouse and keyboard, TV remote, tilt-to-steer wheel, custom layouts, turbo and macros. Free with no ads; Pro is a one-time purchase, and you can try every Pro feature once first.
Hi Product Hunt 👋
Every "phone as controller" app I tried wanted something running on my computer first. JoyLink skips that: the phone announces itself as a standard Bluetooth HID gamepad, so the host just sees a normal controller. No dongle, no receiver app, no root. If your PC or TV box thinks a paired phone is a gamepad, it works.
Inside there's an Xbox-style layout for Steam and emulators, a touchpad plus mouse and keyboard for TV boxes, a TV remote, and a racing wheel where you tilt the phone to steer. You can rearrange the controls per game and record macros. Free to use with no ads, no account, and Pro is a one-time purchase instead of a subscription.
Two things I want to be upfront about, because both came up while building it: some Android makers disable the Bluetooth HID profile in firmware, and no app can turn that back on, so JoyLink checks on first launch rather than failing halfway through pairing. And consoles are a real miss: PlayStation, Xbox and Switch only accept their own controllers.
If you're launching it somewhere unusual — Raspberry Pi, a TV box, an old laptop, two players on one PC — tell me what you're plugging into and I'll tell you honestly whether it'll work. Happy to answer anything about the HID side of Android.
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About JoyLink: Phone as Gamepad on Product Hunt
“Your phone becomes a real Bluetooth gamepad (no dongle)”
JoyLink: Phone as Gamepad was submitted on Product Hunt and earned 3 upvotes and 1 comments, placing #39 on the daily leaderboard. Turning an Android phone into a real Bluetooth gamepad has long been a firmware lottery. JoyLink makes the phone itself the controller: Windows, Mac, Linux, Android TV and even another phone see a standard Bluetooth gamepad, with nothing to install. No dongle, no receiver app, no root. Xbox-style layout, touchpad, mouse and keyboard, TV remote, tilt-to-steer wheel, custom layouts, turbo and macros. Free with no ads; Pro is a one-time purchase, and you can try every Pro feature once first.
JoyLink: Phone as Gamepad was featured in Android (57.6k followers), Tech (633.6k followers) and Games (98.9k followers) on Product Hunt. Together, these topics include over 246.3k products, making this a competitive space to launch in.
Who hunted JoyLink: Phone as Gamepad?
JoyLink: Phone as Gamepad was hunted by dylan xu. A “hunter” on Product Hunt is the community member who submits a product to the platform — uploading the images, the link, and tagging the makers behind it. Hunters typically write the first comment explaining why a product is worth attention, and their followers are notified the moment they post. Around 79% of featured launches on Product Hunt are self-hunted by their makers, but a well-known hunter still acts as a signal of quality to the rest of the community. See the full all-time top hunters leaderboard to discover who is shaping the Product Hunt ecosystem.
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