Picofly: The $3 Nintendo Switch hacking modchip is real, and it’s now available

After some significant work from the modding community, lots of rumors, leaks, and confirmation videos, the Picofly (or pikofly), a hardware hack for the Nintendo Switch relying on cheap off-the-shelf components, is now available. If you have the soldering skills, you can now technically hack any Nintendo switch for less than $10. All Switch models are compatible. This is huge when you think that the competition, namely the HWFly chips, still cost anywhere between $60~$100.

What is the Picofly, and why is it a big deal for Nintendo Switch modding?

Picofly was rumored last year as a potential “DIY” solution for Nintendo Switch hacking, using a RP 2040 Zero, a microcontroller that literally costs $3 on electronics retailers.

Until now, the only way to hack a Nintendo Switch (except for the early, unpatched V1 models) was through other, expensive hardware modchips: the (now out of production) SX chips by infamous team Xecuter, or their multiple clones known as HWFly, which can today be found for about $70. If you think that price is expensive, know that it used to be almost twice that about a year ago. It’s possible HWFly sellers are aware of the sudden competition brought to them by the Picofly, and are quickly lowering their prices in an attempt to remain appealing.

The picofly works in similar ways as the SX Modchips or HWFly: The tiny device is glitching the Switch CPU to make it fail a check, which allows booting from an unsigned payload that will then run higher level software such as Hekate (which itself lets you launch Atmosphere, Linux, etc…).

A lot has happened on the thread over at GBATemp since December, when the picofly was first discussed. An (encrypted) firmware designed to run with the chip leaked in January, as well as test videos confirming left and right that the chip was indeed real and working. There might have been different sources for the original work, as once it was made clear that using a cheap chip instead of an FPGA was a good idea, multiple teams probably got to work on it around the same time.

GBATemp Member Rehius then provided his own firmware for the device in early March, but without plans to support Atmosphere booting. “you can have Linux, but no piracy” was the message (Atmosphère is definitely not designed for piracy, and is primarily made for Homebrew, but piracy is made easy once you have CFW). Rehius was ultimately convinced to release a patch that supports Atmosphere, in part because some of his firmware had successfully been decrypted by flynnsmt4.

If you’re confused as to why GBATemp members were reverse engineering code from one of their fellow forum member, I am too, but I believe a lot of the mess came from a fear of legal consequences from Nintendo. Bowser’s arrest and time in prison is still fresh in everyone’s mind.

But the cat is now out of the bag, with the latest patch release by Rehius, all the pieces are technically here for people to create their DIY Picofly and hack any Nintendo Switch.

Picofly Nintendo Switch Hack: what’s required

Please note that you’ll need reasonable soldering skills. Although I’m sure that “kits” will be sold eventually, from my understanding this is what is required currently to get the hack to work:

Hardware

• A RP 2040 Zero
• 3x 47 Ohm resistors
• Wires for connections
• a MOSFET (it seems people tend to use the HWFly Ribbon cables to do the same work as mosfet+wires, as seen on the picture below)

Software:

• Rehius’s firmware which can be found here (or here for a “simpler to use” version).
  • Rehius’s thread is a must read in any case, because it shows how the soldering needs to be made, has an FAQ, etc…

As you can see, good soldering skills are required, and for the thing to actually fit inside your Nintendo Switch, people report that you probably have to desolder the USB port and the 2 buttons from the RP2040 Zero.

Should you jump on the Picofly to hack your Switch?

Although fully working, until the dust settles this is still “work in progress” at the moment, so only for people willing to take some risk. But the Picofly is confirmed to be real, and can let you hack any Nintendo Switch for less than $10. At the end of the day, in its current state this solution is a bit more work than the HWFly, but at 15% of the cost. And I’m assuming we’ll see this solution get refined very quickly over the days to come.

Stay tuned.