Gamepad Tester

About this tool

Test a game controller's buttons and analog sticks right in the browser — every button lights up when pressed (with its analog value for triggers), and each stick's axes are shown as live bars. Useful for checking a new or old controller for worn sticks, stuck buttons, or drift before a game blames your skills instead.

How the browser sees a controller. This uses the Gamepad API, a low-level browser interface that reports a connected controller's raw button and axis state — no game engine, no driver installation, just direct hardware input read straight from the browser. Every controller exposes its buttons as values from 0 (not pressed) to 1 (fully pressed, useful for analog triggers that report partial pressure) and its analog sticks as pairs of axis values from -1 to 1 in each direction.

Diagnosing common controller problems:

• Stick drift — a stick reporting nonzero movement while resting completely untouched. Watch the axis bars with the controller sitting still on a table; a bar that doesn't rest dead-center indicates that stick's potentiometer is wearing out, a very common failure mode on well-used controllers.
• Stuck or unresponsive buttons — a button that doesn't light up at all when pressed, or stays lit after release, points to a mechanical or contact problem.
• Trigger dead zones — an analog trigger (like L2/R2) that jumps straight from 0 to a high value instead of ramping smoothly suggests the trigger's analog sensing has degraded.

Why the controller doesn't appear right away. Browsers deliberately don't report a connected gamepad until it registers some input — pressing any button or moving a stick — which is a privacy measure (it stops a site from silently fingerprinting every device plugged into your computer just by having the page open). Just plugging in over USB or pairing over Bluetooth isn't enough on its own; press something on the controller first.

Wired vs. wireless. Both work identically here as long as your operating system has already recognized the connection — the browser reads the same standardized Gamepad API data regardless of whether the controller is connected by USB cable, Bluetooth, or a proprietary wireless dongle. If the OS's own device manager or Bluetooth settings show the controller as connected, the browser should see it once you press a button.

To test other input hardware, see the keyboard tester and mouse tester; for the display itself, the dead pixel test.

Frequently asked questions

Why doesn't my controller show up immediately?

The Gamepad API only registers a controller after you press a button or move a stick on it at least once — just connecting it over USB or Bluetooth usually isn't enough to trigger detection.

What is "stick drift" and how would I see it here?

Drift is when an analog stick reports movement even while resting untouched — watch the axis bars for a stick with the controller sitting still; if a bar doesn't sit dead-center at rest, that stick may be drifting.

Does this work with Bluetooth and wireless controllers?

Yes, as long as your operating system has already paired and recognized the controller — the browser sees it the same way regardless of USB or wireless connection, once the OS reports it as a connected gamepad.

Why does a controller need a button press before it's detected?

It's a deliberate browser privacy measure — without it, any website could silently detect every device plugged into your computer just by having a page open, without you ever interacting with that device.

What do the numbers next to the triggers mean?

Analog pressure, from 0 (not pressed) to 1 (fully pressed) — unlike a simple digital button, a controller's triggers (and some face buttons on certain controllers) report how far they're pressed, not just on/off.

Can this test more than one controller at once?

Yes — every gamepad the browser detects gets its own section, so you can plug in and compare two controllers side by side.

Does this work for keyboard-style or flight-stick controllers?

Any device the operating system and browser recognize through the standard Gamepad API should work, though the exact button/axis mapping shown may not match a specialty controller's printed labels one-to-one.