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My friend left the adapter for her Nintendo Switch at a friend's house. She is still able to charge the console and play it in handheld mode. Yet, she is unable to connect it to her T.V.. It seems that, being that she can successfully charge her switch, she -should- be able to connect it to her T.V. given the HDMI cable provided by Nintendo. Why can't she connect it to her T.V.?

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  • When you say "adapter", do you mean the USB-C power adapter? Is she using a 3rd party adapter to charge the console? Or are you talking about the docking station? If so, where do you plug the hdmi cable? The question as it stands is very unclear.
    – Elise
    Commented May 7, 2017 at 5:23
  • Reading the question again it seems to me that your friend is trying to use the docking station without the AC adapter. Is that correct?
    – Elise
    Commented May 7, 2017 at 5:26

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It would seem that the official Nintendo AC adapter for the Switch is significantly more powerful than other USB-C chargers, providing up to 39W whereas most USB-C chargers apparently provide less. (I'm having some difficulty finding precise numbers for the average USB-C charger at the moment.)

The Switch itself only needs 9.1W to charge, according to the linked site, therefore any old USB-C charger can accomplish the task of charging a Switch, however, the docking station also has 3 USB-A ports which could have peripherals attached, for all the system knows. In order to avoid a situation where all the things (potentially) connected to the dock are drawing more power than the charger can provide, some people are theorizing that Nintendo added logic in the dock's interchange that prevents anything more than charging to occur with AC adapters other than their own connected.

This does seem to be consistent with your friend's observations, as well as my own - I have noticed that my Switch won't pipe video to the TV if the AC adapter is unplugged. Even when the Switch itself is fully charged and should, in theory, be able to run for at least a couple of hours without power input anyway.

(It's the only way to be sure the connected AC Adapter is providing enough power, since theirs is designed to provide more than most USB-C chargers will.)

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    I'm pretty sure there is circuitry in the docking station that is not part of the switch. It doesn't matter how charged the switch is, it's likely not able to power the components the way it was designed.
    – JMac
    Commented May 8, 2017 at 9:59
  • The processing power for the Switch also changes based on docked or undocked configurations. Docked configurations get better graphics processing, which I'd presume is through partly due to the increased power available with the the AC adaptor plus whatever code/hardware the dock utilizes. So, it'd make sense for the dock to check all applicable conditions before changing it's processing strategy and sending the audio/video stream to the TV.
    – Ellesedil
    Commented Jul 31, 2018 at 18:06
  • It's a nice thought, but the same message appears when I use an 65W AC adapter (15V/4.3A). This is just feels like vendor lock-in.
    – carpiediem
    Commented Jan 24, 2023 at 1:16
  • There's nothing proprietary in the switch adapter, you can use any MacBook power adapter or tons of aftermarket ones. If you use a special cable (like the Mac charging cable, without data pins) you can use even more adapters.
    – DJSpud
    Commented Apr 21 at 0:17
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Because charging mode requires 5V/1.5A, and dock mode requires 15V/2.6A. Most USB-C chargers, including Apple's Macbook Pro Chargers, may be powerful enough to supply enough watts, but doesn't meet the dual voltage requirements. Nintendo is not following USB-C spec anyway so have to spend $15 or so on an adapter that is specifically made for this purpose.

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  • MacBook chargers work just fine ootb...
    – DJSpud
    Commented Apr 21 at 0:16

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