CRKD's Atom Plus: A $29.99 Controller Aimed at Switch, PC, Phone and TV
CRKD's Atom Plus is a $29.99 gamepad that works with Nintendo Switch, Switch 2, PCs, Android and iOS devices, and various smart TVs. The Verge's hands-on coverage puts the controller at around 3.5 inches wide, a footprint that places it among compact third-party pads rather than full-size controllers.
The control layout is built around a pair of symmetrical analog thumbsticks. CRKD specifies anti-drift tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) sensing for the sticks. TMR reads stick position by measuring changes in a magnetic field, rather than by wiping a resistive track as potentiometer designs do, and potentiometers dominate the budget category. The thumbsticks are nearly identical in size to those on the original Switch Joy-Con and smaller than those on the Switch 2.
The rest of the hardware is conventional. The pad includes shoulder buttons and triggers, rumble feedback, a dedicated home button, motion controls, and a mobile app for customization. The shoulder buttons and triggers use digital microswitches, which make a simple on-off contact. As a result, the triggers cannot register how far they are pressed, so racing and flight titles that rely on graded throttle input will treat them as binary inputs.
Multi-device support depends on a mode-selection sequence rather than a single pairing button. To enter Bluetooth mode for a given host, the user holds the home button together with a specific D-pad direction at power-up. The sequence is simple once learned, but switching between a Switch, a phone and a PC means repeating the combination for each target, with the button mapping held in the host's Bluetooth stack.
On purchasing terms, CRKD's website lists free shipping on orders over $50 in the USA and UK, excluding non-mainland states, along with a 2-year warranty against defects on every purchase.
In my view, the central question for buyers is whether one controller can credibly stand in for several platform-specific pads. The TMR sticks address one of the most common complaints about budget controllers. Stick drift tends to surface after months of use rather than on day one, so it is easy to miss in a short test. The digital triggers are the trade-off that matters most for a specific subset of games, and anyone who plays mainly driving or flight titles should weigh that before buying.
The broader context here is the steady convergence of controller hardware. Bluetooth HID pairing, cross-platform button mapping and companion apps make it practical for one device to serve a Switch session in the living room, a PC session at a desk and a phone session during a commute. For a player who once needed a separate pad for each ecosystem, a $29.99 device that covers several of them lowers the cost of trying new platforms. Whether the sticks, the 2-year warranty and the pairing workflow hold up under daily use is a question that longer testing will answer.
