Dbrand - killswitch for switch2 causes joycons to fell

[pol4]

Name of Brand:

Dbrand

 

Description of your issue:

Dbrand's killswitch case for Switch 2 has a design flaw and causes the Joy-Cons to fell off when holding the console on one joycon after installing the case. The issue is widespread, and numerous posts have popped up in the dbrand subreddit. Besides that issue, people have been reporting that the dock adapter has trouble passing through power, i.e., the console won't charge when connected to the dock.

 

The following is a megathread of the issues that people are having. Credit to u/Dull-Preference-2303 for making this.

 

 

Have you tried solving your issue through the brand's customer support channel? If so, what was the result?

Tried to contact Dbrand about this via email, but received no response. Also, no public announcements from Dbrand. They also stopped letting people who have not received the killswitch cancel their orders on their shop website.

 

What would an ideal resolution of your issue look like?

Dbrand should either send out a revised version of the case free of charge or let people return their case with a full refund. Someone from this channel should notify the public about this issue as this product has been advertised on this channel.

 

[YoungStarDCx]

They have now released a statement, but it does pretty much boil down to your holding it wrong.

[C2dan88]

On 6/21/2025 at 10:18 PM, pol4 said:

Dbrand's killswitch case for Switch 2 has a design flaw and causes the Joy-Cons to fell off when holding the console on one joycon after installing the case.

I cant call it a design flaw when the joycons themselves are designed to ...umm well... detach! . 

 

To me its simple physics the screen is the heaviest part of the device. The error is in you deciding to lift/hold the device with the left/right most side from a detachable point is quite amusing. Physics anyone?

 

Dbrand have nailed it with how to hold the switch properly etiquette.

 

Cant see how they can offer refunds when the products works. It just user error at the of the day?

[RunnerUp]

The free public relations that customers do for dbrand astounds me. This is a flawed product beyond the "you're holding it wrong" part. The dock adapter for many people including myself is also not working.

 

MAYBE some units arrived fine, but many did not including mine. I can't get a single response from them either for the life of me.

[wanderingfool2]

On 6/23/2025 at 11:05 AM, C2dan88 said:

I cant call it a design flaw when the joycons themselves are designed to ...umm well... detach! . 

 

To me its simple physics the screen is the heaviest part of the device. The error is in you deciding to lift/hold the device with the left/right most side from a detachable point is quite amusing. Physics anyone?

 

Dbrand have nailed it with how to hold the switch properly etiquette.

 

Cant see how they can offer refunds when the products works. It just user error at the of the day?

You really are leaning into the whole "you're holding it wrong" mentality that Apple did.

 

It's all about the amount of force that takes to be detached etc.  If the dbrand stuff introduces a weakening of force and angle that is required then it actually isn't user error but design error.

 

It's like saying a door is meant to open and close, but then you ignore that someone create a product that prevents the door from properly closing which makes it a whole lot easier to open up (like when a gust of wind blows).

 

Simple fact is, would it occur on the original, sounds like a firm no, so it's such an asinine statement pretending that it's okay for a company to essentially say you are holding it wrong.

 

 

dBrand goes at length pretending like people won't ever hold it like that, but I could see how people could potentially hold it like that...especially kids.

 

Or like people like myself where I sometimes like curling my fingers while playing a game and usually I'll end up holding it exactly how they describe would trigger it.  So yea, it's definitely a design defect,

[manikyath]

IMO quite a bad take from Dbrand to blame the user.. but when nintendo annonced the joycons would be magnetic, this problem was the first thing i thought of...

 

a magnetic connection is only strong if the load is pretty much linear with the magentic field, put on an angular load (like it appears the grip case is causing/amplifying) and the joycon connection is just hopeless.

 

what to me would be correct courses of action here:

1: first of all.. BULL-SHIT. Dbrand should have caught this in testing if they did any serious testing at all. product testing isnt "using the product and seeing if it works", product testing is trying to be that idiot the universe will invent and break your product.

2: blaming the user is wrong. your product exposed a weakness in the product it's designed to attach to. the cause here is that nintendo went with a poor design. if all you're doing is fingerpointing, point at nintendo.

3: recall the damn thing, and redesign for this to not happen. i'd dare bet that an overhang on the underside from the joycon grip supporting the switch would alleviate enough angular load that the problem is gone.

4: instead of just showing "when you hold it right it wont happen", perhaps make a video showing how you tested this exact failure mode, and if it can occur at all on the switch without a case (which i'm sure it can).

 

we have a common issue at work with battery chargers that got sold with a type of battery we get in for servicing a lot... on paper it's a very good design: the charger will detect a sudden dip in charge current and turn itself off because that dip likely indicated the BMS was turning off at end of charge voltage...

except, when your battery is 5 years old those contacts are worn as f*ck and a nudge can cause a big enough dip in current for the charger to turn off.. including when you plug it in in the first place. so yes.. the problem very often is that the user is plugging their battery in wrong, but that only happens because of the very flawed design of their charger, including the very wear-prone connector they decided to use.

[pol4]

6 hours ago, manikyath said:

and if it can occur at all on the switch without a case (which i'm sure it can).

From my personal experience using a switch 2, the joycon does not fell out while you are holding it. It does flex a bit but you will have to yank it to make it fell.

[manikyath]

44 minutes ago, pol4 said:

From my personal experience using a switch 2, the joycon does not fell out while you are holding it. It does flex a bit but you will have to yank it to make it fell.

i meant that as in, the problem distills down to the joycon being stationary in a given position, and the rest of the device is essentially a given force down with leverage (presumably more force with the case, and a weakened joined due to the before mentioned shape of how the case hooks onto the joycon), and given enough force down, a bare switch will fall off a bare joycon, and the "look we tested this" thing to do would have been to have actual figures by how much the case affects the required force.

 

or in very simple terms.. the problem at hand is a high school physics question, and they reacted to it with a middle schooler's argument instead of just doing the assignment.

[pol4]

1 hour ago, manikyath said:

i meant that as in, the problem distills down to the joycon being stationary in a given position, and the rest of the device is essentially a given force down with leverage (presumably more force with the case, and a weakened joined due to the before mentioned shape of how the case hooks onto the joycon), and given enough force down, a bare switch will fall off a bare joycon, and the "look we tested this" thing to do would have been to have actual figures by how much the case affects the required force.

 

or in very simple terms.. the problem at hand is a high school physics question, and they reacted to it with a middle schooler's argument instead of just doing the assignment.

that makes sense

[wanderingfool2]

17 hours ago, manikyath said:

2: blaming the user is wrong. your product exposed a weakness in the product it's designed to attach to. the cause here is that nintendo went with a poor design. if all you're doing is fingerpointing, point at nintendo.

I know you mentioned about how they should create a video showing if it can happen without it...but them finger pointing at Nintendo though would be also wrong imo (unless if it can be done realistically the same way)...but given the videos currently showing how easy it is to fall off on dbrand and the unboxing's I've see I doubt that it would be as easy.

 

18 hours ago, manikyath said:

a magnetic connection is only strong if the load is pretty much linear with the magentic field, put on an angular load (like it appears the grip case is causing/amplifying) and the joycon connection is just hopeless.

I'm not sure it's just that, but rather that it causes it to very slightly be further away from the contacts as well...which with the inverse cube will mean the magnet loses a lot of it's force.

 

Mixed with what you said with the angular load and it's bye-bye joycons.  Effectively what they did was create a lever, where the weight of the switch is far enough from the fulcrum that the magnets would have to endure likely a larger force than trying to hold the switch itself up.

 

So yea, even ignoring the linear strength of magnets, I wonder if the fact that it also has a higher load because of the weight being so much further past the fulcrum point plays in to this.

 

I'm also curious what the tolerance is on it.  If on some if the tolerances are so tight that the plastic keeps the magnet slightly further away (weakening it)

[manikyath]

25 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

but them finger pointing at Nintendo though would be also wrong imo

it would be less wrong than fingerpointing at the user.

 

26 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

I'm not sure it's just that, but rather that it causes it to very slightly be further away from the contacts as well...which with the inverse cube will mean the magnet loses a lot of it's force.

yes and no. the problem is that indeed a magnetic connection is very sensitive, and Dbrand clearly bunged it up.. but it's quite hard to not bung up a magnetic connection. if nintendo went with a mechanical connection like the original switch the problem would not exist, and in my opinion dbrand should be focussing their answer on the impact their case *actually* has, and how sensitive the switch 2's magnetic conenction *actually* is, instead of just going full apple.

 

my point is.. they had a chance on directing away at least part of the blame while they regroup, and what they did was just insult the intelligence of their customers.

there's a lot of cases where i just facepalmed at stories of people interacting with Dbrand and their immediate reply to cilent issues being an absolute trainwreck.. but even to me making what appears like a very controlled effort at shifting blame to the customer is a bridge too far.

[OhYou_]

all these replies and not a single photo of what is even going on?
is there a design flaw causing the joycon to not fit fully into the switch2?
does it interfere with the ability for the joycon to flex without lifting out of the socket?
or is the issue that it adds weight and the added weight makes it come off easier

[Millios]

1 minute ago, OhYou_ said:

all these replies and not a single photo of what is even going on?
is there a design flaw causing the joycon to not fit fully into the switch2?
does it interfere with the ability for the joycon to flex without lifting out of the socket?
or is the issue that it adds weight and the added weight makes it come off easier

You got a general idea of it from what you said

Basically it's this

In the switch 2 the joycons are magnetic and in many units if you hold it with one hand on either joycon to say use the touchscreen then it falls off and or cause damage according to some (conflicting info on the damage but the console falling due to the magnets is 100% confirmed)

[wanderingfool2]

26 minutes ago, OhYou_ said:

all these replies and not a single photo of what is even going on?
is there a design flaw causing the joycon to not fit fully into the switch2?
does it interfere with the ability for the joycon to flex without lifting out of the socket?
or is the issue that it adds weight and the added weight makes it come off easier

The reddit post and dbrands reply pretty much address what is going on.

 

The tl;dr. You hold it by the controller which it laying flat and the joycon disconnects and the switch falls.

 

It seems like a multitude of explanations on why it's happens, but it all comes down to dbrand having the joycon grip curl around the controller a bit which in some way makes the switch a lot more susceptible to it.

[manikyath]

2 hours ago, OhYou_ said:

all these replies and not a single photo of what is even going on?
is there a design flaw causing the joycon to not fit fully into the switch2?
does it interfere with the ability for the joycon to flex without lifting out of the socket?
or is the issue that it adds weight and the added weight makes it come off easier

ironically dbrand's own reddit post explains the problem quite well...

 

in essence, with the case on it, if you hold it horizontally by one joycon, the switch will fall off the joycon. (presumably that doesnt happen with a bare switch)

[RunnerUp]

My ticket opened June 20th about a defective KillSwitch Case still has no replies from dbrand outside of the automatic reply.

 

Would be nice if LMG looked into this. I love the concept of holding their sponsors responsible for treating customers right, but you can't just ignore it when it is dbrand. I don't care how big of a sponsor they are for LMG.

 

Beyond the issue with the product itself, the lack of response from dbrand is unacceptable. I don't think LMG should continue advertising the company to its viewers until dbrand starts actually responding to them in a reasonable timeframe.

 

Right now I have an $80 paperweight and no response at all from dbrand. Amazing!

[CasualExtremist]

2 hours ago, RunnerUp said:

Right now I have an $80 paperweight and no response at all from dbrand. Amazing!

I'm pretty sure WAN show (June 27th, 2025) restated the update from dbrand was that they are working on a revision to the "paperweight" and once it is finalized, all purchasers of the original will be receiving the revised version for free. This was supposedly the 2nd statement dbrand made after recanting on their original "You're holding it wrong" statement. Might be worth looking into.

[RunnerUp]

19 hours ago, CasualExtremist said:

I'm pretty sure WAN show (June 27th, 2025) restated the update from dbrand was that they are working on a revision to the "paperweight" and once it is finalized, all purchasers of the original will be receiving the revised version for free. This was supposedly the 2nd statement dbrand made after recanting on their original "You're holding it wrong" statement. Might be worth looking into.

Considering I can't use the product since it doesn't connect to my dock correctly (another issue others have) in addition to the JoyCon grip issue you're referencing, it IS a paperweight for me.

 

And about the lack of customer support responses that most of my comment was about?

 

What pisses me off even more than the lack of responses from dbrand are customers who defend them to the death.

 

You don't know my situation so don't put paperweight in quotes and don't tell me to look into something when I spent $80 for a product that doesn't work and I can't get a single reply about it from the business I paid the money to.

 

The WAN discussion does not help with the issues I was having so I stand by my earlier comment that LMG should pause all dbrand spots til they start actually doing their job.

 

in addition even if the joycon issue was my only issue which again it isn’t, i shouldn’t need to watch some podcast or read a reddit sub to see what the company is doing. They should reply to my ticket from 14 days ago. 

[RunnerUp]

For those wondering, I still have not gotten a single reply from dbrand to my ticket which was opened on June 20th.

 

Someone please tell me how this is acceptable and what the purpose of this forum even is if a sponsor can behave that way and it doesn't even matter.

 

All it does is make me think about no longer purchasing from any company that sponsors LMG because I can't be sure they vetted them or even care after the fact about the companies they promote. I'm not trying to gang up on LMG or blame them for this directly. But indirectly, I only learned about dbrand due to this sponsorship so I feel LMG does share some of the blame now for basically ignoring it and continuing to promote dbrand.

 

I obviously will never buy from dbrand again regardless.

[CasualExtremist]

On 7/4/2025 at 3:52 AM, RunnerUp said:

Considering I can't use the product since it doesn't connect to my dock correctly (another issue others have) in addition to the JoyCon grip issue you're referencing, it IS a paperweight for me.

 

And about the lack of customer support responses that most of my comment was about?

 

What pisses me off even more than the lack of responses from dbrand are customers who defend them to the death.

 

You don't know my situation so don't put paperweight in quotes and don't tell me to look into something when I spent $80 for a product that doesn't work and I can't get a single reply about it from the business I paid the money to.

 

The WAN discussion does not help with the issues I was having so I stand by my earlier comment that LMG should pause all dbrand spots til they start actually doing their job.

 

in addition even if the joycon issue was my only issue which again it isn’t, i shouldn’t need to watch some podcast or read a reddit sub to see what the company is doing. They should reply to my ticket from 14 days ago. 

Aggression unwarranted. I was not taking a side, just sharing the information that appeared to not have come up yet. Hope you get well soon.

[CasualExtremist]

On 7/4/2025 at 3:52 AM, RunnerUp said:

since it doesn't connect to my dock correctly (another issue others have) in addition to the JoyCon grip issue you're referencing, it IS a paperweight for me

Remove the case?

[manikyath]

15 hours ago, RunnerUp said:

For those wondering, I still have not gotten a single reply from dbrand to my ticket which was opened on June 20th.

 

Someone please tell me how this is acceptable and what the purpose of this forum even is if a sponsor can behave that way and it doesn't even matter.

 

All it does is make me think about no longer purchasing from any company that sponsors LMG because I can't be sure they vetted them or even care after the fact about the companies they promote. I'm not trying to gang up on LMG or blame them for this directly. But indirectly, I only learned about dbrand due to this sponsorship so I feel LMG does share some of the blame now for basically ignoring it and continuing to promote dbrand.

 

I obviously will never buy from dbrand again regardless.

- Dbrand's customer service communication is a trainwreck.

- Dbrand *will* despite their horrible communication skill, always try to make it right.

 

i do sort of assume that they might be quite burried in tickets, so while 3 weeks resposne time is awful, it might just be because of the influx of tickets. they're not a huge multinational, their entire CS department fits in a single office.

 

as for some people in this thread's opinion... i agree to the statement of paperweight, if you're affected by this issue, i understand you're very weary about using the case at all. and while the obvious statement of "just remove it" obviously means you can use the switch again.. you still have $80 sitting on the shelf being useless... aka the very definition of a paperweight.

 

i'd say just wait out a response to the ticket, and take the announcement that you'll "get a fixed case eventually" as confirmation things arent gonna just be ignored. and if you arent in it for the wait, i'd say ask support nicely if it would be possible to get a refund given the circumstances.

[wanderingfool2]

12 hours ago, manikyath said:

as for some people in this thread's opinion... i agree to the statement of paperweight, if you're affected by this issue, i understand you're very weary about using the case at all. and while the obvious statement of "just remove it" obviously means you can use the switch again.. you still have $80 sitting on the shelf being useless... aka the very definition of a paperweight.

Will say this though, while it's a paperweight it's also a paperweight that can serve the purpose of holding one back from buying a replacement from a difference company.

 

If lets say they say they will only offer replacements then you know you have to wait for then, but if you also are someone who bought the case to prevent scuffs etc then that means it also diminishes the enjoyment of the device if you are more careful with it while not in the case (it's like when I get a new phone, until I properly get a screen protector and case I am always hesitant using it).

 

12 hours ago, manikyath said:

- Dbrand's customer service communication is a trainwreck.

- Dbrand *will* despite their horrible communication skill, always try to make it right.

 

i do sort of assume that they might be quite burried in tickets, so while 3 weeks resposne time is awful, it might just be because of the influx of tickets. they're not a huge multinational, their entire CS department fits in a single office.

I would say yes and no.  While I agree that CS can get buried in tickets and response times can get quite long when an event happens which takes them a while to respond...basic level CS logic could have helped a whole lot.  If they truly had an influx of tickets, then their CS response on Reddit was wrong.  It also wouldn't be that much effort if they have a proper ticket system to just send out an email to everyone who purchased one that explains the situation (which in turn should lower the repeated tickets asking for updates).

 

I would say dbrand doesn't always try to make things right.  They refuse to fix their case that causes issues with flash (and despite them acknowledging that using flash can be an issue their response is that since people don't use flash for taking pictures they aren't going to fix it)

[manikyath]

1 hour ago, wanderingfool2 said:

If they truly had an influx of tickets, then their CS response on Reddit was wrong. 

their trainwreck on reddit is quite on par for their track record;

13 hours ago, manikyath said:

- Dbrand's customer service communication is a trainwreck.