Topic: IR Cameras

This article: https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2025/01/video-weve-spotted-... points out how on the Switch 2 both Joy-Cons now have an IR camera whereas on the current system only the right Joy-Con has the IR Camera.
While I generally enjoy the more gimmicky aspect of Nintendo consoles, I was surprised to see Nintendo double down on this feature. After all, it was used in a very limited selection of titles in Switch 1 which makes me wonder if they have a new plan for it going forward.
Any thoughts on this interesting addition and possibles new uses?

@Mothertroid I checked the Joy-Cons and it appears to just be a plastic seam as it extends through the case, and that seam also has no separate IR camera sensor near the bottom. Even the L Joy-Con has this seam.

Its funny that you should bring up a sensor bar. The IR camera sensor actually has two IR emitters, one on each side of the lens. One could theoretical use one right Joy-con as a sensor bar, by setting it up above or below a screen, and then each player would use a right Joy-con as a "Wiimote".

I always wondered why some games, such as HotD, didn't use this set up as an optional input mode for those who had two or more right Joy-cons. Maybe the two IR emitters are not far enough apart to give a proper right/left axis, but that is just conjecture on my part. I also wonder if you could get more accuracy if the player held Joy-con could also emit IR which could then be picked up by the joy-con acting as a sensor-bar as a kind of double precision check.

For demonstrative purposes this video shows the emitters and how they can interact with the camera:

It's still not confirmed either way if the IR camera is going to be included in the Joy-con 2s so this implementation might never be realized. I would say that having the seams on both left and right Joy-cons meet in a curve instead of just continue strait to edge for no foreseeable reason other than style may mean something. I mean the "C" button is just blanked out with no label, probably to hide its use before they want to reveal it, so they might be hiding IR cameras on both left and right Joy-cons for the time being. If both Joy-cons do have an IR camera then you would have a sensor-bar and a user held controller with every Switch 2. Another thing to keep in mind is that Nintendo has used IR sensors for interesting things in the past, such as being how the Circle Pad Pro communicated with the 3DS, so they may continue to want such a thing on the Switch 2 for future use.