AKNES GuliKit Joysticks for Steam Deck (Type A & Type B), No Drifting, Hall Effect Sticks Replacement, Left/Right Thumb Grip Parts for Steam Deck Console-Electromagnetic Joystick (No Soldering)

This is a review for the type B compatible SD02 version of the thumbsticks. In short, they worked great for me. The install and calibration can be done in less than 10 minutes. You'll probably have to calibrate them with the button on the back of each joystick before putting the cover back on, but it's not a huge issue. The container they shipped in also works well to store the original thumbsticks. I wouldn't have minded if you had to solder the caps on, but it does save you a couple of minutes if you ever have to swap back in your old sticks for whatever reason, plus you get a spare set of caps. My left stick's calibration was perfect from the box, but my right one was off a little bit. I had no weird issues with deadzones after calibrating, or with other issues people had with the previous version such as the sticks grinding / scratching / sticking, or the motion not being smooth. If I had to pick a "negative" it would be that one stick is was switched to A and one stick was switched to B from the factory. You should be inspecting this anyway before installing, but I'm sure someone will leave a one star review eventually mentioning the gyro not working correctly. Assuming they hold up over time these are a great replacement for the stock thumbsticks. Just don't expect them to make you a better gamer.

My sticks started drifting so I picked these up. They were very easy to install and seem high enough quality. They needed a little breaking in at first but they seem good now. Recommended!

Super easy to install, didn't even have to calibrate after install. They were pretty well calibrated, no drifting, no issues. Perfect direct replacement. Just have to install them into the correct position (Left and right stick position). I personally, feel they are an upgrade from the OEM sticks (OEM potentiometers) to installed (electromagnetic). I feel they have a better response time, of course calibrate after install, but I feel they also move smoother.

They are smoother in action, but the dead zone is bigger than the original joysticks. I can tune it in SteamOS to make it not drift, but if you use Windows or any other OS on your Steam Deck you will get incurable joystick drift. Edit Sept 2024: I bought the Steam Deck OLED joysticks. I kept my old LCD Steam Deck with these joysticks and I had the OLED Steam Deck for almost a year with the original joysticks. It was easier to test the difference side by side. I noticed the Hall effect joysticks were much more precise and responsive (I still don’t get why they say these don’t have drift though. The joystick returns to the center with basically a spring, Just like a traditional joystick, so as the spring wears out or holds a position slightly off perfect center, it can drift. The only thing that prevents it from drifting is the ability to adjust the joystick deadzone in SteamOS, The functional difference between these Hall effect joysticks and traditional is that traditional joysticks use potentiometers which is a variable resistor that has brush contacts so it can read out difference resistances to determine the joystick’s position. This means it can wear out and be vulnerable to dust and static to give bad readings. The Hall effect joystick uses a magnet on the joystick and a sensor to detect the magnet’s position. Since the sensor is very sensitive it can articulate many times the amount of positions a potentiometer could. ) While my original comment still applies, I’ve decided that overall these are better than the original joysticks in game. You can make much finer movements with them. My new right stick unfortunately still occasionally drifts in games running on my Windows dual boot. The touch sensing wire connected to my left thumb stick was a little short. This caused the wire to snag when I was circling the sticks to test the feel of it. This prevented some movement. Thankfully I didn’t close the Steam Deck up yet so I took it out to look and I didn’t have to desolder the wire. I just had to use a utility knife to very carefully cut the glue they had covering the wire near the solder joint. The glue made the wire stiff and took away a few mm of slack which was needed. After I cut off the glue, I was able bend the wires so that they don’t rub and snag against the joystick component anymore. I played a few games and it works great.

Easy to install and worked! Exactly what I needed

Bought this kit as soon as I saw it available for the Type B (MHDA) joysticks. I had already upgraded the NVMe drive of my Steam Deck, so opening it back up was simple as before. Just go slow and be careful not to strip any of the screws, and make sure you remove your microSD card if you have one. From beginning to end, it probably only took about 15 minutes including calibration to install these new joysticks. Mine were slightly low of center even after multiple attempts using the button on the back, but running thumbstick_cal in desktop mode fixed it so now it's perfectly calibrated at 0,0. As others have said, this new revision still has the downsides of a square outer deadzone and that the joysticks max out at about 80% throw (e.g., if you press forward on the joystick 80% to max, it will always register 100%). I feel like most people won't notice the difference or can adapt to it, but nonetheless it would be nice if they fixed this for any future revisions. However, I would not recommend using these to control an underwater submersible due to this small inaccuracy.

Muy buenos, una pena no haberlos cambiado antes.. muchísima predicción en shooters... Con los originales se apuntaba muy dificil

I broke my steam deck joystick after dropping it and was quoted 150+ USD by valve to fix it. $40 and 15 minutes later, I had these installed instead. Really easy installation and calibration, even for someone who has no hardware experience. Would recommend.

Installé en 10 min, calibrer en 5. Fonctionne parfaitement, ils m'ont l'air plus souple que les originaux , je les trouve top !!!

Fuero muy fáciles de instalar, al momento se sintió la diferencia, honestamente me hizo amar más mi Steam Deck, puedo jugar cosas que antes no por el drift, puse las deadzones en 2000 y se siente genial, el único detalle es que son cuadradas en lugar de circulos, pero no afecta

The red cable that connects the joystick to the board is too short. It gets stuck when rotating the joystick and it gives a very unpleasant feeling.