ESP32-BLE-Gamepad VS passinglink

Trying to find premade code to make an xbox style controller for Steam. I have looked into it before but what I found isn't exactly clear. https://github.com/lemmingDev/ESP32-BLE-Gamepad This was the code I found but I don't understand what they define as a "hat" and how you're supposed to get 128 buttons.

Conveniently, I had a spare ESP32 board sitting in a drawer (which is not an Arduino and technically makes the title of this post innacurate, I know), and a quick Google search showed that some legendary human being had already done the hard work of writting an Arduino library to create Bluetooth wireless gamepads on ESP32. The stage was set!

Absolutely! It's quite a bit more complicated, but someone else has already put their code on GitHub for one: https://github.com/lemmingDev/ESP32-BLE-Gamepad

I simply want the controller to be able to function as a single full-fledged controller (with all the buttons of a regular controller) but also have the functionality of being split into two smaller/simpler controllers. For a smaller handheld, I was able to create a simple bluetooth controller using an ESP32-WROOM-32 and the ESP32-BLE-Gamepad library by lemmingDev.

Googling ESP32 Bluetooth game pad shows that there are libraries so I assume it's possible.

I used the ESP32-BLE-Gamepad library and changed up the flight controller example code slightly. I’d appreciate any advice, thanks!

Yes, with an ESP32 and the Bluetooth LE Gamepad library.

This is the library I used.

Have you looked at this one? https://github.com/lemmingDev/ESP32-BLE-Gamepad

That's great news. Thank you for making me aware of it. This one, right? https://github.com/passinglink/passinglink

I guess I should clarify my question. The question was more on the controller development side, where PS4 requires authentication with the controller. Building a custom controller from scratch would require somehow acquiring those keys, either via some shady places or by intercepting the traffic coming from a real licensed controller.

The Nordic nRF52840 is a fantastic chip that is being used in the keyboard community to make keyboards that support both Bluetooth Low Energy & USB HID. If I were you, I'd grab an Adafruit Feather nRF52840 Express to base my controller on. There is an open source game controller firmware project called PassingLink that supports the Feather.

There are open source firmware projects such as Passing Link, but not with PS5 support yet as far as I'm aware.