Well, I have to admit, I’m not from the generation of young people who easily use smartphones. Especially when it comes to controlling a car. When it comes to driving an RC car, I’m more of a remote control person, and even then, not the pistol-grip version. The joystick version, like in the 80s and 90s. That’s good because game console controllers look like that.
The CARRERA HYBRID app supports Bluetooth controllers, so let’s give it a try.
To conduct this test, I stole a controller from the SWITCH console.
The controller is very cheap, it comes from the Action store, here is its information.
https://www.action.com/fr-fr/p/3007868/manette-battletron-nintendo-switch
The first thing to do is pair the controller with your smartphone. To do this, enable Bluetooth if it isn’t already. Turn on the controller; it should appear in the list of available devices and select it.
Then, simply go to the settings menu with the red icon in the top right corner to activate the controller control mode.
When you drive a controller is drawn in the background of the interface.
The controls
I find the controls aren’t the best, which is a slight disappointment.
I found the accelerator button (the “B”), but not the brake button. There’s no indicator on the screen to tell which button/control is active.
I couldn’t find the reverse button, nor the button to turn the headlights on or off.
There’s clearly no screen for configuring the controller buttons, but I hope this will come in a future update.
The driving test
It’s immediately easier to drive with the controller, the steering seems more intuitive and therefore precise with the controller, but on the acceleration side, the fact that we use the button, we lack precision and dosage. Too bad that we can’t use other buttons for the headlights, reverse and it would have been great to have a horn even if it’s just for the sound on the phone.
In October (2025) CARRERA will release a dedicated controller for this with a smartphone holder. It remains to be seen what the possibilities and ergonomics will be. Will we be able to take advantage of all the controls? Will I be able to connect it to my game console? @ continued….