Topic: The Nintendo Switch Experience, On Batteries (Portable docks, TVs, projectors and speakers)

So I had a neat discussion with some members of the NintendoLife community on the article page about the OJO Projector, got some great advice from @cfgk24 and others.

Specifications
Price: $369
Brightness: 200 Lumens
Resolution: 854x480 (16:9)
Speaker: 5W

A lot of interesting suggestions were made. There's a lot of criticism about this particular device being fairly weak for the price, and I've since looked around - there are $300 devices that beat this in price, resolution, and brightness (often all three in a single unit) though they lack the ability to run entirely without wires.

Feel free to discuss your own portable gaming experience setup here

I personally have given up on the OJO and am looking at putting together some parts to make my own setup. There's four things I need:

POWER SUPPLY and HDMI CABLE OR DOCK
I'm not sure what to go for with this. I've seen some power stations come with outlets that you can simply plug the dock into, but that comes with the limitations of region - I live in Australia, our outlets look like this and we aren't a country known for producing a lot of tech. (I'm also visiting America and don't want to be mix-mashing tech) For simplicity, I'm sticking to USB and USB adapters. Every country has them, and I won't have to include them in my setup until I go to charge the whole thing. So these are things I'm currently looking at:

ZMI Xiaomi QB820 20,000mAh (Power Supply)
The QB820 has been confirmed by a few different people to use the correct output (USB-PD) required to power Nintendo's first party dock. The thing runs solely on USB cables. (USB-C in, 2 x USB-A out) With this I could take one dock: a certified Nintendo dock, with me, and use it no matter whether I am plugging in to a TV or a projector.

If you have any recommendations for combinations, please let me know, I'd love to see (even third-party docks I'm open to)

DISPLAY/PROJECTOR
Battery-powered projectors seem to be quite pathetic until you get up into the $300 range.
$250 Projectors and cheaper seem to not cross the 200 lumens mark nor 480p quality (though there is a pico or two that does 720p but at 50 Lumens)
$300-350 Projectors range from 100-500 Lumens, and often have 720p (a few with 800p)
It's not until you get up to $500 that projectors start pushing bigger numbers like 550-700 Lumens

I'm considering the AAXA P300, KP600, M5 and M6 (these things apparently are monsters, with the amount of light they're supposed to give out)
Battery life is a concern but I'd like to see how the projector synergizes with a power bank that also runs the Switch.

AUDIO
Most of the speakers that come inbuilt into portable projectors look really weedy. I've already got a UE Boom 2 (3200mAh, 90dBA SPL, 90Hz - 20kHz) which can charge by USB cable but its battery capacity pretty much renders the question of its power supply a non-issue. (15 hrs)

I have this lying around but I've read it doesn't work and/or fully bricks your console...

Are you sure it's the SFANS you heard that bricks consoles? There's plenty of low quality Chinese brands out there that many of the brick reports could be coming from. I just want to make sure that all third party docks aren't duds just because a few brands shipped with faults.

EDIT: Oh right, just realised SFANS are just Chinese products. I'll keep searching for complaints about them though.

I've just stumbled across an enormous list of products on Amazon, which all seem to do the same thing but have slightly different designs. The reviews are mostly the same:

Paid 5 star reviews
3-5 star reviews includign cautionary messages saying you're supposed to use the official power supply with the device
A few 1-star reviews from people who didn't do their homework or use the right devices
A few 1-star reviews from people who found the device stopped working after about a month

Adapters
Fyeoung, Rocketek, MoKo, Scorel, AllEASY, FUTSYM, Wofalodata, C-Force...

The list goes on for identical pieces of hardware with random made-up names... USKY, ZYNON, eeco, and many more, but these don't advertise themselves as adapters for the Switch (despite looking so much alike)

And then there are the docks. They're all about the same size, look like all they hold is the bits from the official dock (though can't say anything for the quality):

Docks
Magigaga, Linkstyle, J&Top, BASTOP, FastSnail, MENEEA, FancyWolf, Nyko...

I think they're all about the same quality. (Their prices all seemed the same, and none stood out as self-aware) It doesn't seem like there's any demand for a more durable adapter than these $30 pieces of repackaged chinese hardware.

This is starting to look pretty grim for "3rd Party Docks"... which there are effectively only TWO.

Just check their indiegogo page, you won't feel happy after...

@toiletduck

Yeah, I checked all the background out with that campaign, looked up some stuff that explained what they might have been doing, and did some additional research on similar products.

What I found was that, what I can assume to be all third party docks that I've seen so far are just pieces of plastic containing one of these chinese boards or some almost identical board from another chinese factory, or an equivalant piece with a few less usb ports, but packed into an HDMI "adapter" instead of a plastic dock case.

I think I'm not going to get a device with non-suspicious parts unless I buy a spare Nintendo Dock, pull it apart, and build an adapter myself.