The 8BitDo USB Wireless Adapter 2 makes a seductive promise: plug in a small dongle, pair your Switch Pro Controller or Joy-Cons, and skip the whole world of drivers, virtual gamepads and background programs that BetterJoy lives in. For a certain kind of user that promise is real. But the adapter has one limitation that its marketing does not shout about, and it happens to be the feature most BetterJoy users came for: gyro only works in its Switch mode; in XInput mode, the adapter passes rumble and nothing else from the motion sensors. This comparison walks through what the dongle actually does on a PC, where that limit bites, and when hardware beats software.
How the adapter route works
The adapter is a Bluetooth receiver with a personality disorder, in a good way: it pairs with your controller itself, then presents that controller to the host as something the host already understands. It has modes — an XInput mode where the PC sees a standard Xbox-style pad, and a Switch mode where the host sees a Switch-style controller. No ViGEmBus install, no HidHide decisions, no program that must be running before you launch a game: the translation lives in the dongle’s firmware. It also works across hosts — the same adapter serves on Switch and PC — which is the core of its appeal for people who are done tinkering with driver stacks.
BetterJoy is the mirror image: free software (download), a one-time ViGEmBus driver install, and a small program you run when you want your controllers translated — in exchange for system-wide XInput or DS4 output and a DSU motion server no dongle offers.
The gyro catch, in plain terms
8BitDo’s own specification language gives the game away when you read it closely: the adapter’s 6-axis motion support is specified on Switch, while its XInput mode is specified for vibration. Confirmed behaviour on PC follows that split:
- XInput mode: the PC sees a normal Xbox controller. Buttons, sticks, triggers and rumble work; gyro is simply not in the output. Any game or emulator that wanted motion gets none, and no setting changes this.
- Switch mode: the PC sees a Switch-style controller, and motion data is available to software that reads Switch controllers natively — Steam Input, or emulators using SDL input. That is a real path to gyro, but it is the native path (see BetterJoy vs Steam Input), and it still is not a DSU server: nothing here feeds a Cemuhook-style motion client on 127.0.0.1:26760.
So the adapter does not “do what BetterJoy does, in hardware”. It does the pairing and presenting part in hardware, and leaves motion to whichever native support your software happens to have.
Day to day: living with each route
The lived difference is smaller than the spec sheets suggest, but it is consistent. With the adapter, the routine is: plug dongle, press sync, play. The controller wakes as the device the host expects, there is nothing to launch first and nothing to close afterwards, and the setup survives reboots, Windows updates and your own forgetfulness. With BetterJoy, the routine is: pair once in Windows Bluetooth, start the program (many users pin it or start it with Windows), play, and occasionally remember that it — not Steam, not the game — owns the pad today. In exchange you get things firmware cannot: the DSU feed, per-app freedom, remapping of SL/SR/Capture to keyboard keys, and battery status in the UI. Neither routine is onerous. The adapter’s advantage is that its routine has no failure modes involving drivers — when a ViGEmBus install goes wrong, it goes wrong in ways that fill our troubleshooting hub; a dongle, by contrast, mostly just works or gets replaced.
One more practical asymmetry: range and interference are the adapter’s home turf — it is a dedicated Bluetooth radio sitting in your USB port, which can be a quieter connection than a crowded motherboard antenna, the classic cause of the lag in our Joy-Con Bluetooth lag fix. A good USB Bluetooth adapter for the PC narrows that gap for the BetterJoy route, but the 8BitDo dongle builds the radio and the translation into one purchase.
The per-controller maths
One adapter serves one controller. A Pro Controller on the couch: one dongle, done. Two players, or a Joy-Con pair treated as separate controllers: the dongles multiply, and so does the bill, where BetterJoy handles multiple pairs of Joy-Cons through the PC’s own Bluetooth for free. This is the same arithmetic every adapter faces (the MAGIC-NS 2 comparison has it too), and it flips the “cheap hardware fix” story for multiplayer households.
A naming trap: Ultimate Software is not this product
Shoppers regularly conflate the adapter with 8BitDo’s Ultimate Software. That program configures 8BitDo’s own controllers — button mapping, stick curves, firmware for their pads. It does not drive original Nintendo controllers; installing it will do nothing for your Nintendo Pro Controller. If your plan was “buy the software, keep my Nintendo pad”, there is no such plan: the routes are the adapter (hardware), a mapper like BetterJoy or reWASD (software), or replacing the pad itself.
Head to head
| Factor | BetterJoy v7.1 | 8BitDo USB Adapter 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Form | Free software + ViGEmBus driver | USB Bluetooth dongle, firmware-based |
| Cost model | Free | One adapter per controller |
| Gyro in XInput mode | Yes (also to DSU/stick/mouse) | No — rumble only |
| Gyro in Switch-style mode | n/a (BetterJoy outputs XInput/DS4) | Yes, to software reading Switch pads natively (Steam/SDL) |
| DSU/Cemuhook server | Yes, 127.0.0.1:26760 | No |
| Joy-Con pairs / multiplayer | Multiple pairs via PC Bluetooth | One controller per adapter |
| Also works on console | No — Windows only | Yes (Switch and other hosts) |
| Maintenance burden | Driver stack to install once; program runs while playing | Essentially none |
| NFC/amiibo, IR camera | Not passed to PC | Not passed to PC — true of every route in this series |
Verdict
Choose the adapter if your pain is the driver dance itself — you want a Pro Controller working in Steam or a console-style setup with zero software maintenance, you play one pad at a time, and your gyro needs are covered by Steam/SDL native support in Switch mode. It is a genuinely pleasant product for that job.
Choose BetterJoy if motion is the point: DSU feeds for emulators, dual-Joy-Con independent motion (the case that still requires a DSU server — see Ryujinx successors), gyro-to-mouse, or several Joy-Cons at once. The adapter cannot be configured into doing any of those, at any price per dongle. The complete route map is in the best way to use a Switch controller on PC and the comparisons hub.