Genki thinks it has the secret sauce for portable Nintendo Switch docks

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The Nintendo Switch is a great console, with one major annoyance – you have to carry the bulky official dock around if you want to use it in TV mode while you travel. Genki thinks it’s got a fix for this issue, with its Covert Dock, which packs all the necessary docking hardware into something not much bigger than the Switch’s charger.

Can Genki succeed where many other Switch accessory makers couldn’t? If how quickly the Kickstarter total is going up is any indication, I’d say they’ve got a good chance.

The Genki Covert Dock is a charger-sized portable dock for your Nintendo Switch

Image: Genki

The Covert Dock looks great, assuming it works. I’ve got faith in Genki, their bluetooth audio adapter spawned a multitude of copycat designs because it was so good. I just worry about our precious Switches, as third-party docks have supposedly broken the console in the past.

One of Genki’s engineers wrote a deep-dive into the problems of previous docks, and why the Genki Covert Dock is much closer to the original dock than the previous ones with issues. Basically, they say the other manufacturers didn’t implement the peculiar variant of the USB-C PD spec that the Switch uses in its charging circuits properly. That lead to those other docks sending too much voltage into the console.

• Gallium Nitride (GaN) makes it all possible to pack that much hardware into such a small space without overheating
• It’s a tenth of the size of the original dock, and nearly a quarter the size of the original charger
• It can push up to 30W of power, which could even charge some smaller laptops via USB-C PD

If you’re interested in getting your hands on the Covert Dock, head on over to Kickstarter. The campaign has some early bird prices available still, at $59 per dock. Genki aims to ship in Dec 2019, but as it’s Kickstarter, treat that shipping date as a suggestion not a hard and fast date.

What do you think? Interested in this home dock from Genki? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience at KnowTechie, SlashGear and XDA Developers. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere, with particular focus in gadgetry and handheld gaming. Shoot him an email at joe@knowtechie.com.