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Google recently announced that the Stadia Controller would be getting Bluetooth support. The news arrives just as the cloud gaming platform enters its final week. According to a previous announcement, Stadia's servers will officially shut down on January 18, 2023. Following this, customers will no longer be able to avail of the service. However, this may not be the complete end of the service, as the recent news of Bluetooth support being added might just keep its controller alive.
Developed by Google, Stadia is a cloud gaming service that allows users to play their favorite AAA and console-quality games on the go. The service has its own store, from where players can purchase games. However, being a cloud-based platform, it eliminates the requirement to download those games. As a result, Stadia users can directly stream the content onto their laptops, TVs, phones, and computers.
Bluetooth support finally coming to Stadia's controller
Although the controller already has Bluetooth functionality embedded in its hardware (Bluetooth Low Energy 4.2 (BLE) support), it was strangely never utilized. The note on the official Stadia Controller support page reads:
"Product contains Bluetooth Classic radio. No Bluetooth Classic functionality is enabled at this time. Bluetooth Classic functionality may be implemented at a later date."
As per recent developments, Google will be providing owners of the controller with a self-serve tool, with which they'll be able to enable Bluetooth on their device. At the moment, it's unclear how the procedure will take place, but it looks like there will be a software update that arrives sometime next week.
While Stadia as a service failed to appeal to the masses, its controller, however, was quite impressive to cloud gaming enthusiasts. Arriving in three colors of Clearly White, Just Black, and Wasabi, the community loved the controller and considered it to be the only good thing that came out of Google's cloud gaming service.
Being a cloud gaming service, eliminating lag was the biggest concern for Google. Although players can play games on the platform with a mouse and keyboard set-up, third-party controllers, or the touch screen of a mobile device, Google also introduced a controller that connected directly to the internet instead of the hardware that one was playing on.
Essentially, this resulted in a much lower overall latency, which is of great importance for a decent cloud gaming experience. As mentioned earlier, although it had Bluetooth for connectivity, it was never used as the device relied on Wi-Fi to deliver inputs.
This is all there's to know about the Bluetooth update that the Google device will receive soon. While it remains to be seen how the self-serve tool will work, fans are demanding that it be made open source so that it can be used as a regular gaming controller.
