With just one tweet, Nintendo has answered the requests of many a Switch owner, and joined the modern era with Bluetooth support.
Bluetooth isn’t exactly a new technology, having provided support for wireless sound for well over a decade, so it might seem crazy to find out not every device that should have Bluetooth support necessarily does.
That has been the case with the Nintendo Switch since it was announced back in 2016 and launched the following year, with wireless headphone support missing in action for use on that console. Despite the fact that the Switch is clearly a portable console, and portables should play nicely with highly portable devices like wireless headphones, support for wireless has been missing in action from the console.
Even in subsequent versions, including the upcoming OLED model, Bluetooth audio wasn’t mentioned, and so you’ve had to consider alternate approaches to getting sound beyond the on-board speakers.
If you wanted Bluetooth headphone support, you needed to plug in a wireless transmitter that could talk to your earphones from the Switch’s headphone jack. You could also plug in wired headphones and earphones, of course, but given how common wireless earphones are, it’s been a desired feature for the Switch that also happened to be missing in action.
And in one tweet, Nintendo fixed all of that.
The latest #NintendoSwitch update is now available, including the ability to pair Bluetooth devices for audio output.
For more information, including restrictions on some features while using Bluetooth Audio, please visit the support page: https://t.co/vzAB6lZTDu pic.twitter.com/6J5xcDl5kU
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) September 15, 2021
According to Nintendo, the latest update for the Switch provides support for Bluetooth audio devices, provided they’re headphones and earphones.
Nintendo’s support page on the matter does say that Bluetooth microphones won’t work, so this is solely a way to get wireless headphones talking with the console, which is more or less a case of muttering under your breath the words “finally”.
At least it finally happened, and was a software only fix. Now the question is why it took so long for Nintendo to make it happen.
