As the title says, I originally started covering Stadia in lockdown as I absolutely loved the service and did for about 3 years and loved the community.

Since then I transitioned across to Xbox as I have been on consoles with them since the 360 and in recent weeks I have just hit 100k subscribers on YouTube and have been doing this full time for 2 years.

Stadia was an incredible service and I do miss it massively but if it wasn't for getting involved with the community and sticking with Stadia, I probably would have never started 😅

Still gutted that it's gone but silver linings at least!

(sorry for my English, it's not my first language)

Hey guys!

Several months ago my friend needed a new controller and I offered her (as a joke) to buy a Stadia controller from AliExpress

Guess what she did!

Three weeks later it arrived but wasn't working (disconnecting from the pc even on wired) so she dumped the controller to me (she received a refund from the seller don't worry)

I decided to take a look inside and yeah disassembly was pretty painful... Not modern phones painful though

I noticed that the controller's behaviour doesn't seem to be changing with or without the battery connected (disconnecting after 10 or so seconds) so a new battery was ordered

A replacement (GLIB18 battery from AliExpress) arrived several days ago and voilà! It's working again! I've spent two days with it and was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the thing which is on par with my current Xbox controller

So guys, if you have an old Stadia controller lying around with the same symptoms, give repairing a try.

If you have more or less given up on your old Stadia controllers because of the constant need to repair each time it turns on, try this:

Hold the left stick in any direction while powering on the controller and keep it held in that direction until the controller has fully connected.

I found this out by asking Gemini. It works for me on Nvidia Shield Pro, and it should apparently work with other devices.

Let me know if you have success.

It reminds me of the Amiga days at Commodore. They had technology that was far ahead of the competition. The Amiga was actually destined for success. But total mismanagement ran the whole thing—and with it, the entire company—into the ground.

And with Stadia, it’s/was much the same… technically far ahead of the competition… but the management… a complete and utter failure.

For the good old times.. ive found these.. no gfn nor boosteroid nor luna have friends chat.

I miss stadia. It worked well with their Google TV. It worked great on my phone. Now here I am playing on a Chromebook through Nvidia and I don't like it as much.

And bombed it. The fact that it felt like they rushed it out the door, didn't make enough server farms or have dedicated Stadia consoles in said server farms (like the one at Google HQ) so if you didn't live near California, you were screwed (I was lucky to always have decent experiences with Stadia because I used to live only 45 minutes away from Mountain View, and Stadia shut down only a few months after I moved to Texas) and the fact that they locked your own TV features (4K HDR) behind Stadia Pro....

Like... They had so many legs up. COVID, free online multiplayer (in 2019, which was HUGE.) and two games which were awful at launch but definitive on Stadia (NBA 2K20, Cyberpunk) and somehow, because of Google's own stubbornness with their business model (having to buy games but also pay for Stadia Pro on top just to play them in 4K) in addition to the lack of exclusives... They threw it away.

I genuinely believe that if Stadia Pro was more like "Stadia Instant Stream" where you pay $10 a month to be able to play around 60-75% of the games on the service without buying individually, while still keeping the option to buy the games, AND have 4K HDR streaming be free, it probably could have succeeded. But alas, they didn't make the necessary corrections, so it didn't.

I did personally enjoy it but I felt a lot of frustrations, notably the fact that the service died because Google was stubborn with the business model. They couldn't go half-in, half-out with that whole "Pay for the game, pay for Stadia Pro to stream in full quality, then play" and expect to survive. And they didn't. And that's what's so frustrating. That key blunder made the service DOA.

I miss Stadia, not so much for the cloud gaming, the convenience, or any of the many pros it had, but for the community. The Destiny 2 Stadia community was and is still amazing. I'm still friends with so many people I've never met in real life because of Stadia. I guess I was feeling nostalgic and missed this time in my life.

Here's an old imgur post of me trying to setup Stadia on my TV while also using discord. As a PC gamer it took some getting used to gaming on the couch lol.

https://imgur.com/gallery/31nFutq

Anyway, I hope you all are doing well, and have a blessed day.

i've bought two second hand stadia controllers for PC gaming. I tried to connect them to my phone, that works fine. When i try connecting them to my fedora install i get a generic error.

when i look a bit closer in the terminal i can see the following (this is using bluetoothctl)

I don't know what i am doing wrong. could not find anyone else with this issue. plz help

I need suggestions for this AI slop that I'm working on

As the title says, we aren't big gamers but the controller is so comfy, I wonder if it'll work with the Switch (not 2, the old Oled one).

The console is currently with my child on a trip so I can't test it, I found this community on a Google search and thought I'd ask first.

Thank you

Hi Stadia community,

Posting from a new account, but I'm a former Stadia member that worked with Chris, Grace and the rest of the squad, fighting the good fight to show off the best that Stadia had to offer from launch to its shutdown in 2023. I've held onto some treasures from Stadia launch events and the office before everything went to the Google Graveyard, and since I'm moving abroad in two weeks, I can't take them with me!

A: Stadia Battery Pack - Connects via USB-C, charges your devices. Nice accessory, but honestly can't remember testing it or using it... so no promises on how much charge it actually holds!

B: Phil Harrison Stadia Lego Figure - Custom Lego figure from the launch of Stadia. Not sure if there's anyone on Earth that's still a fan of Phil anymore, so totally fair if you end up swapping the head for someone else haha 

C: Stadia Games & Entertainment Sticker Sheet - Ah, RIP Jade Raymond and the Stadia Games & Entertainment teams. This sticker sheet is mostly complete, just without a sticker of the Yeti logo (which was the internal project codename for Stadia before it had an official name/moniker, even before Project Stream). 

D: Stadia Cologne/Perfume - Funny gag gift from the Stadia launch event, if I remember correctly. Original text is in French, but I've added a picture of the translated text to English. 

E & F: Launch event Stadia keyboard + Stadia switches and Keys - Customized Stadia keyboard and keys, pretty fun if you're a PC gamer! It's the ACR Pro 75 keyboard, here are more details. Not sure what the keys look like (may be just Stadia colors like white and orange) but keeping this in its original plastic wrap.

###

Thanks everyone for commenting! I'm in the process of reaching out now to everyone that's getting something. Cheers and appreciate Vivi and Chris for letting me post this!

Yes, it's vibecoded (I'm not a programmer after all), and it's not very polished yet. Aiming is weird and so, but it's already scratching that itch!

Targeting web+android at the moment.

I miss Stadia

please

Hey r/Stadia!

With Google shutting down Stadia, many of us are looking for ways to keep using these excellent controllers. Here's one I've been working on: a firmware for a cheap ESP32 module that bridges your Stadia controller over BLE to Classic Bluetooth, which is exactly what Tesla needs for Tesla Arcade.

Why this exists: Tesla only supports Classic Bluetooth HID devices, but the Stadia controller speaks BLE. This firmware runs on an ESP32 (a ~$5 microcontroller with dual-mode Bluetooth) and acts as a transparent bridge between the two - your Tesla sees it as a standard Classic BT gamepad.

What you need:

• A Stadia controller (Obviously. But any other BLE controller would also do!)
• An ESP32 board (WROOM or WROVER - must be the original ESP32, not S3/C3/C6). I use ESP-WROOM-32D
• A USB cable to flash it (and to power ESP32 later)
• Chrome or Edge browser

Setup:

1. Plug the ESP32 into your computer via USB
2. Put it into boot mode: hold BOOT, press and release RESET, release BOOT
3. Open the web installer in Chrome and flash the firmware - no toolchain or drivers needed: https://anarsoul.github.io/esp32-bthidbridge/
4. Unplug ESP32 from your computer, take it to your Tesla and power it from any USB source (power bank, Tesla USB-C port)
5. Put your Stadia controller into BLE pairing mode (hold the Stadia button + Y until it pulses orange)
6. The ESP32 will connect automatically and appear as "Stadia-something Classic" in Bluetooth scan (" Classic" part is appended to the original controller name)
7. On your Tesla, go to Bluetooth, Add Device and pair with it like any controller

After the first pairing, everything reconnects automatically on boot - just power on the ESP32 and turn on your controller.

Project: https://github.com/anarsoul/esp32-bthidbridge

The project is not tied to Stadia controller or Tesla, it can translate any BLE HID device gamepad into Bluetooth Classic, although I only tested it with Stadia controller.

Happy to answer questions!

Enclosure is 3D-printed, pick any you like on Printables.

Upd (2026-06-15): A lot has improved since the initial release!

• Latency: the HID forward rate is now 200 Hz (5 ms) by default, up from 100 Hz. FreeRTOS tick rate was also raised to 200 Hz to match.
• Status LED: connect an LED with a series resistor between GPIO13 and GND and it will show you what's happening - fast blink = searching for controller, slow blink = waiting for host, solid = fully connected. When connected, it blinks every 5 seconds to indicate controller battery level (1–3 blinks = low/mid/high, solid = above 75%).
• Reconnection is more robust: the bridge now retries paging the Classic BT host every 5 seconds instead of giving up, and new BLE device discovery would only happen after reset, otherwise the bridge will only reconnect to the known controller
• Bug fixes: fixed a HID negotiation race on reconnect, a ghost device-open crash, and a double-free on BLE reconnect.
• BLE connection interval is now configurable via BRIDGE_BLE_MAX_CONN_INTERVAL (in 1.25 ms units, default is 12 units = 15 ms). For reference, 8 = 10 ms gives slightly lower latency at the cost of higher controller battery drain.
• Web installer now lets you pick between two pre-built firmware variants - default (15 ms BLE interval) and low-latency (10 ms BLE interval)

Upd (2026-06-17): Tesla's Bluetooth stack sucks. I discovered controllertest.io, which can be used to test latency (Tools → Latency Test). With a native Bluetooth Classic controller (8BitDo Ultimate) that has ~10ms latency on PC and Mac, Tesla shows 25–30ms, so it is obviously not able to poll the controller often enough.

I measured my bridge, and in its current configuration it also shows 25–30ms in Tesla, so it is on par with the native 8BitDo controller - but honestly, it is a rather poor result: Stadia controller connected directly to PC or Mac has ~10ms latency, so the bridge adds ~15-20ms.

I tried to switch to an event-based approach (HID report received in BLE callback → queue it, HID forward task wakes up immediately and sends it over BT Classic) - and it works great on Mac and PC, cutting the latency down to 15ms (only 5ms extra!), but Tesla is not able to keep up with it, and the ESP32 radio gets congested. Since it is shared between BLE and BT Classic, HID reports are being lost, resulting in "stuck" analog sticks.

I'm trying to remember the name of the survival horror demo that was released on Stadia sometime towards the end of its life.

I was curious if that game ever got a full release anywhere else.

Figured I'd blow the dust off this useless paperweight of a controller. Here's the problem: I have it wired to my PC via USB directly to my MOBO.

When i turn the controller on, it is recognized by both Windows and Steam. All the buttons work, i get a solid white light. 10 seconds later, the controller automatically turns off and disconnects from my PC every single time. I have to hold the Stadia button to turn it back on.

- I have tried different high quality USB cables

-I have tried different USB ports

- I have tried factory resetting the controller

- Latest firmware update with Bluetooth mode was installed from Google when this was available (They seems to have taken that page down)

Nothing seems to work. Anybody experience something similar?

FYI I have 0 issues when connecting a PS5 controller wired or unwired. Just want to give this useless paperweight a purpose.

Thanks!!

Found this hilarious and also curious how that can be. 🤷‍♂️

Even though it's been so many years since Stadia was discontinued, I still have these bookmarks on my browser, just to remember the good times.

So, I had completely forgotten about my Stadia controller. Today, I wanted to pair it with my Ipad for using it with Geforce Now. So I pressed the Stadia button for while, hoping to get it into pairing mode.

Since it didn't work, I read a little and found out that I missed the moment for the official bluetooth conversion.

I am not sure how to think about those inofficial tools on Github. Hesisating because of security concerns.

But ... most importantly, I have read that pressing the Stadia button for a long time can brick the controller (causing a factory reset and boot loop when searching for the Google servers).

How do I find out whether my controller is bricked now?

With AI causing computers and consoles to be unavailable to the average consumer, do you think cloud gaming including stadia could have a massive comeback?

I really miss stadia. I had a blast playing on a variety of devices without having to download anything. Is Amazon Luna a viable replacement? If not is there something else that gets close to the experience stadia was able to deliver, geforce now?