The group of developers "switchroot" has been working on a project to take Android to Nintendo Switch. After several months of development, just a few days ago they released the first installation guides and related documentation on the XDA Developers forum. Would you like to play Super Mario Run on Nintendo's hybrid console? Attention, because, although it is a bit surreal, it is already possible (and beware, it still has quite a few bugs).
The first unofficial Android ROM for Switch is based on the Nvidia Shield TV
This version of Android for Nintendo Switch is based on Lineage OS 15.1, which in turn drinks the waters of Android 8.1 Oreo. A fact that is not surprising, since this image is very similar to the one mounted on the Shield TV (remember that the Nintendo Switch equips the same Tegra X1 processor as the Nvidia device).
This is really interesting data, since the switchroot team has prepared the system in such a way that we can use our Nintendo Switch as if it were an Nvidia Shield TV for all purposes. In this way, we can use the Nvidia streaming service or play exclusive games that are only compatible with this device.
This is the process of installing Android on Nintendo Switch
The best of all is that if we already have our console modified with the Hekate bootloader, the installation process is as simple as we can face.
- We copy the image from the ROM onto a micro SD card.
- We download the GApps package and the ZIP to convert the console into a Shield TV (optional), and copy everything to one of the SD partitions.
- We restart the console entering TWRP and flash the content of the SD.
- Finally, we restart the Switch in Hekate mode and load Android.
Note: you can see the detail of the entire installation in the link that we have left in the first paragraph of this post.
Some things work and some not so much: list of bugs
Considering that the Switch was not designed to run any other operating system, the result is remarkable. Android works in both TV and laptop mode and the joycon also detects them and works perfectly.
However, we are talking about an unofficial ROM and the bugs are still considerable: the WiFi has intermittent disconnections, the battery drains quite quickly and the auto-rotation sensor is disabled, in addition to other details still to be fixed.
Remember to modify our Nintendo Switch may be a reason for ban in case we want to play online games. Anyway, if we are interested in installing the Android ROM for Switch, from switchroot they recommend using the torrent download (it seems that their servers are quite saturated at the moment).
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