As you all might have noticed the Nintendo Switch recently received another update bringing the firmware version up to 12.0.0.
Although there wasn’t much to shout about thanks to the extremely brief patch notes, once the update was datamined, it was noted that the update enabled the Nintendo Switch’s dock to be updated.
Thanks to OatmealDome for pointing it out on Twitter, there may be even more to the patch. Update 12.0.0 has supposedly added audio support for the system’s Bluetooth driver;
I personally don’t think Nintendo would add this for “no reason”, so hopefully this will be used somewhere. (Especially since Bluetooth Audio is a highly requested feature on the Switch.)
We’ll see what happens. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. Nintendo works in mysterious ways.
— OatmealDome (@OatmealDome) April 7, 2021
No more dongles?
Currently to use a Bluetooth headset with the Nintendo Switch you have to buy a USB-C or headphone jack dongle. There’s a handful of peripheral suppliers online who facilitate this (like Genki and Gullikit(, but connecting a Bluetooth headset to the Nintendo Switch directly without a dongle, as in wireless, is just not possible.
OatmealDome quite rightly points out, nothing is guaranteed and until we get word from Nintendo that it’s a thing so for now, let’s keep using the dongles. But what do you guys think this will add in the long run?
Nintendo themselves think it was at least important enough to jump a major version in firmware, so who knows.
