This controller tester reads your gamepad in the browser. Press a button and you see it light up on screen. Go through the whole pad once and you will know whether something is really broken.
How to run the test
Plug the controller in with a USB cable, or connect it over Bluetooth. Then press any button on it. Browsers hide gamepads until you press something. That is a privacy rule, not a fault in your controller.
When the drawing appears, press every button, both triggers and all four directions of the D-pad. Click both sticks in. Then push each stick to the edge and roll it all the way round. Everything the browser sees lights up on the drawing and shows up in the input log.
What each reading tells you
This is what a controller input tester is for. The drawing shows you which input is wrong. The numbers show you how wrong.
Buttons
A button that never lights up is dead, or no longer makes contact. A button that stays lit after you let go is stuck. That is usually dirt, not a broken chip. If one press gives you two lines in the log, the switch fires twice.
Triggers
L2 and R2 measure how hard you press. They are not on-off buttons. Pull one slowly and the bar should rise smoothly from 0.00 to 1.00. If it jumps straight to 1.00, or stops at 0.60, the sensor is worn. If it reads above 0.00 when you are not touching it, you will creep forward in games.
Sticks
At rest both sticks should read close to +0.00 on X and Y. At the edge they should reach about 1.00. Roll each stick around the rim and watch the numbers. If the value stops changing somewhere, that spot is worn.
Stick drift, and what the number means
Stick drift means the stick reports movement when you are not touching it. In a game your view turns slowly on its own. The check on this page watches both sticks for about three seconds and keeps the highest value. Leave the sticks alone while it runs, or you will measure your thumb.
We call anything above 0.09 drift. That is our own limit, not an official one. Sticks are never perfectly still, so 0.01 or 0.02 at rest is normal. Games ignore small values like that, which they call a dead zone. We picked 0.09 because it is higher than normal noise but lower than most dead zones, so a stick that fails here will probably cause trouble in games too.
Light drift sometimes gets better if you clean around the base of the stick, or recalibrate through your console or Steam. If it comes straight back, the stick itself is worn out.
Why your controller does not show up
Press a button on it first. Nothing appears until you do. That is the reason behind most reports of a broken gamepad tester.
Still nothing? Check the cable. Many USB cables only carry power, not data, so your controller can charge fine and still never appear. Use a cable you know works for data, and plug it into the computer itself instead of a hub. Also click somewhere on this page, because a background tab gets no gamepad input.
Why the vibration button is sometimes greyed out
The browser gives the page a vibration handle for each gamepad. Sometimes it works and the controller rumbles. Sometimes the browser hands back null: it knows about vibration, but does not offer it for this controller on this connection. And sometimes there is no handle at all, which means the browser cannot do vibration.
The message under the button tells you which of the three you got. Only the last one is about your browser. None of the three is about your controller. A PS5 controller that returns null over a good USB cable is common in Chrome and Edge, and that same controller still rumbles in games.
USB or Bluetooth
Buttons, sticks and triggers work the same either way. Vibration is the difference. Over Bluetooth many controllers do not offer it at all. So if you want to test rumble, use a cable with Chrome or Edge on Windows.
What a browser cannot test
Any gaming controller tester in a browser can only use the Gamepad API, the standard browsers use to read gamepads. That gives it buttons, sticks and trigger pressure, and nothing more. It cannot read where your finger is on a PS5 touchpad, it cannot read the motion sensor, and it cannot check adaptive triggers. It can ask for vibration, but it cannot measure how strong the rumble really is.
Questions people ask
Is an online controller tester accurate?
Yes, for what it measures. It reads the same values your computer sends to games, so a button that fails here fails everywhere. It cannot tell you why it failed.
Does this game controller tester work with any gamepad?
Yes, if your computer sees it as a standard gamepad. Xbox, PlayStation, Switch Pro and most other pads work. Pick the drawing you want with the two layout buttons above it.
My stick reads 0.02 at rest. Should I worry?
No. That is normal noise and games ignore it. Worry when the drift check flags it, or when the number moves on its own.
The trigger jumps from 0.00 straight to 1.00.
On most controllers the pressure sensor is dead and only the end stop still works. Some cheap pads have simple on-off triggers, so check what yours is supposed to do.
Does this work on a phone or tablet?
Yes. Connect a controller to the device and use Chrome or Edge. Vibration on phones often does not work.