Nintendo Switch Stylus Pen: create pressure-sensitive art

Nintendo Switch styluses aren’t exactly a common accessory for the hybrid gaming system. Sure, there have been a few attempts, but nothing has come close to making a stylus a practical accessory for Switch owners. The Colors SonarPen, the latest attempt at a Switch stylus, goes beyond hardware to try to transform the device into a proper tablet.

The stylus is an accompanying piece for Colors Live, a digital painting app for the Nintendo Switch that is the successor to the Nintendo 3DS stylus art game Colors! 3D. The SonarPen is a wired stylus that connects to the Switch’s 3.5mm audio jack due to the console’s lack of built-in Bluetooth.

“Because the Switch doesn’t have general Bluetooth, it’s not possible to use professional styluses available for other platforms,” Colors Live designer Jens Andersson told The Verge.

The stylus is also pressure sensitive, so Switch owners can apply the appropriate amount of pressure onto the Switch’s LCD touchscreen to produce various degrees of lightness or darkness onto a drawing. It comes in 10 colors, though only the cable can appear in a different color as the pen itself has a default black color.

Colors Live, with the pressure-sensitive stylus Kickstarter project, launched on May 13th with a funding goal of $16,337 and successfully reached its goal on the same day — it’s currently raised more than $130,000. The Kickstarter project is still running for the next several days. If you want to back the project, you can pledge $53 (or more for additional perks) to obtain a Colors Live eShop code in addition to a SonarPen.


Source: The Verge

A note on crowdfunding:

Crowdfunding is a chaotic field by nature: companies looking for funding tend to make big promises. According to a study run by Kickstarter in 2015, roughly 1 in 10 “successful” products that reach their funding goals fail to actually deliver rewards. Of the ones that do deliver, delays, missed deadlines, or overpromised ideas mean that there’s often disappointment in store for those products that do get done.

The best defense is to use your best judgment. Ask yourself: does the product look legitimate? Is the company making outlandish claims? Is there a working prototype? Does the company mention existing plans to manufacture and ship finished products? Has it completed a Kickstarter before?

And remember: you’re not necessarily buying a product when you back it on a crowdfunding site.