Bluetooth Arcade Controller released!

If you’ve been following Wayne and Layne for a while, you’ve surely noticed that we’ve been kicking around this idea of a bluetooth-connected arcade controller, we even identified a bluetooth module and made a breakout board for it. Fortunately, our friend Jeff at the Keyglove project showed us a much nice and much more flexible bluetooth module, that works much better than our original module.

In conjunction with another friend of ours, John Baichtal, we turned our penchant for bluetooth keyboards into a how-to article in Make Magazine volume 28, along with producing an actual product! We’re proud to announce the release of the Bluetooth Arcade Controller, and add-on shield for the Arduino Mega, that lets you turn some arcade joysticks and buttons into a bluetooth keyboard.

We built a small demonstration unit with one joystick and six buttons for the 2011 World Maker Faire in New York City back in September. We connected it to a tablet computer and used the bluetooth keyboard to play games.

The Bluetooth Arcade Controller can support over 52 buttons, joysticks, switches, etc. A system-level diagram on how to hook things up is shown below. More details are available from the Bluetooth Arcade Controller page.

The Bluetooth Arcade Controller is available for purchase exclusively through the Maker Shed Store.