PadVitals shows what your game controller is doing right now, and turns it into numbers. Buttons, sticks and triggers appear in real time, and the app measures stick drift, circularity, and the rate at which input events are delivered. Rumble is checked in its own step of the diagnosis. No PC and no cable required.
■ See every input in real time
Button lights, the position and trail of each stick, and how far each trigger is pulled, all drawn on a controller schematic with the raw values beside them. You can follow your own input as it arrives.
■ Measured as numbers
- Stick drift: how far the values sit from center while your hands are off the stick
- Stick circularity: how much the circle is distorted when you trace the outer edge
- Input event delivery rate as measured on Android, and jitter (how much the intervals varied)
- Trigger slack: where the response starts, read together with the range up to the fullest pull
- Core buttons: which presses were detected during the check and which were not
When a measurement is not enough to judge, the app shows "Undetermined" rather than a number it cannot stand behind. Nothing is presented as measured when it cannot be measured.
■ Keep a history on the device
Each finished diagnosis can be kept on this device, so you can reopen past runs and see how the same model has changed over time. Android does not expose an identifier that tells two units of the same model apart, so their records share one list.
■ Share the report
Every item is gathered into a single report image that you can share as it is.
■ Privacy
Controller input, diagnosis results and history are handled only on this device and are never sent off it.
The app does show ads (AdMob), and the ad SDK uses the network to deliver them, so this is not an offline-only app.
■ Controllers
DualSense, DualShock 4, Xbox Wireless controllers and generic HID gamepads. Other models, including Nintendo controllers, may work. Button layout and the features available differ by model and Android version. A controller that Android does not recognize as a gamepad may not appear in the list even when it is paired.
■ No controller at hand? Try demo mode
Demo mode walks through every screen and the whole diagnosis flow without a controller. The values it shows are fictional, not measurements.
■ Price
Every feature is free. The app shows ads and has no in-app purchases.
Note: PadVitals is a tool for checking a controller's state and for your own reference. It measures the input data this Android device received; it does not diagnose the controller hardware itself, and it does not certify whether hardware is faulty.
Gamepad tester: buttons, sticks, triggers, stick drift and circularity.