Serving tech enthusiasts for over 25 years.

TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust .

Serving tech enthusiasts: Plug a Switch 2 into an ordinary USB-C hub and it will charge, but the TV stays dark. That's because the console won't send a picture until the hub answers a proprietary handshake. Nintendo's $125 dock knows the replies, as do third-party docks built to mimic it. Now, a hobbyist has taught a roughly $45 laptop hub the same trick by rewriting a sliver of its firmware.

The hobbyist, who goes by mkopec, explained in a blog post that Nintendo's dock is simply too bulky to travel with. A €40 ($44) Cable Matters 7-in-1 hub looked like a neat replacement, since it already takes video over USB-C. But hooked up to a Switch 2, it only charged the console.

Nintendo's handheld is far stricter about docks than the original Switch, so mkopec put a USB-C sniffer between the console and its official dock.…