Setup
Getting your adapter running.
About a minute, start to finish. Nothing to install, nothing to sign into.
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Plug the adapter in
Any USB-A port. If the port is around the back of your PC, use the included extension cable to bring the adapter out into the open — range is much better there than from behind a steel case.
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Put the controller in pairing mode
With the controller off, hold the PS button and the Create button (the small one left of the touchpad) together for about three seconds, until the light bar starts flashing quickly.
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Wait for solid green
The adapter's LED goes from flashing to solid green when it has the controller. That's it — you're wireless, and it will reconnect on its own from now on.
Reference
What the light means.
Flashing green
Searching. It will keep scanning until it finds a controller — there's no timeout to worry about.
Solid green
Connected and passing input. Haptics and adaptive triggers are live.
No light
No power. Reseat both ends of the cable, or try a port directly on the motherboard rather than a hub.
Misbehaving
Unplug, wait five minutes, plug back in. More on that below.
Pairing a different controller
One adapter holds one controller at a time. To move it to another controller, just put the new controller into pairing mode the same way — hold PS + Create until its light bar flashes. The adapter will drop the old one and take the new one.
A controller that has since been connected to a PS5 or another adapter needs to be put into pairing mode again before this one will take it back.
Using it on a different PC
Nothing is stored on the computer, so moving the adapter to another machine is just unplugging it and plugging it in. No driver install, no first-run setup, no re-pairing — the pairing lives on the dongle, not on the PC.
If something goes sideways
The five-minute reset fixes most things
Unplug the adapter, wait a full five minutes, then plug it back in and re-pair. It sometimes gets confused partway through pairing, and the wait clears both sides. Try this first.
Still not connecting?
- Try a different USB port. Front-panel ports and unpowered hubs are the usual culprits. A port directly on the motherboard is the best test.
- Charge the controller. A DualSense low on battery will pair and then drop out, which looks like a dongle problem and isn't.
- Turn off Bluetooth on the PC. If the controller was previously paired to Windows over Bluetooth, Windows will sometimes grab it first. Remove it from your Windows Bluetooth devices list.
- Check the light bar. If the controller's light bar isn't flashing when you hold PS + Create, it isn't in pairing mode yet — hold longer.
If none of that does it, email [email protected]. Tell us what the LED is doing and what you've tried, and we'll sort it out. If it's a hardware fault we replace it.
Keeping it up to date
Firmware updates are free and always optional. To change settings or update, get the free Windows app — it's the adapter's control panel. The firmware page has what's new and how to update.
The app can't find your adapter?
Turn the controller on first. The adapter only shows up on your PC while a controller is connected to it — wait for its light to go solid green, then look again.