How to connect a controller to test it: USB, Bluetooth and dongles

Getting started

Connecting a controller

Connect the controller, press any button on it, and PadBench draws it, lighting each control as you use it.

By USB

Plug the pad in with a cable that carries data: many cables only charge, and a pad on one of those charges without ever showing. A cable also gives the steadiest timing of any connection.

By Bluetooth

Pair the pad in your system's Bluetooth settings first, with the pad in pairing mode as its manual says, often by holding a button as it turns on. Once paired, it connects whenever it's turned on. A DualSense or a DualShock 4 on Bluetooth starts in a reduced report, without its touchpad, motion or battery, until it's switched to its full one.

Some pads, once paired over Bluetooth, never show through the browser's Gamepad API, though the system lists them: the browser doesn't take them for a gamepad. In Chrome and Edge on a computer, + after the controller tabs opens the browser's list of devices, where such a pad can be chosen and read through WebHID instead.

With a dongle

Plug in the dongle that came with the pad, and turn the pad on: the two are paired already, and the computer sees the dongle as a USB pad. Some pads choose between their dongle, Bluetooth and their modes by a switch or by a button held as they turn on, as their manual says.

XInput pads on a Mac

Many pads have an XInput mode, in which they present as an Xbox 360 controller, and some, such as boards running GP2040-CE, start in it. A Mac reads such pads only from macOS 15 Sequoia, and not every one then, so on an older Mac no browser shows them. If yours doesn't show, switch it to another of its modes, such as DirectInput, Switch or PS4, as its manual says, and it shows as the pad that mode presents as.

Microsoft's own Xbox One and Series controllers are another kind, which macOS reads itself, by Bluetooth, and by cable from macOS 15. Chrome reads them there through Apple's framework, which passes on no reports, so WebHID can't reach them, and their polling rate can't be measured on a Mac.

Press a button

A browser shows a pad to a page only once it has been used there: Chrome after a press or a push of a stick on any pad, Firefox after input from that pad, and Safari after a press, while its window is in front. Until then the page doesn't show it, so press any button once the pad is connected.

Several controllers

With two or more pads connected, each has a tab in the top bar, numbered in the order it came, with its brand or a short name, and a lamp that lights while a control on it is held. Up to four tabs show on a wide screen and two on a narrower one, with the rest under +N, and on a phone the tabs scroll. All draws every pad at once.

A pad that comes while you test another waits in its tab: the screen turns to a pad you use only once the one shown has been still for two seconds, so a pad bumped on the desk doesn't take over. When a pad goes, the screen turns to the one used last.