Nintendo Acknowledges Switch 2 Battery Indicator Issue and Offers Fix

A battery indicator issue reported by some Switch 2 owners has been acknowleged by Nintendo — and there’s now a set of steps to follow for a (hopefully) quick fix.

To be clear, this doesn’t appear to be an issue with the Switch 2’s onboard battery itself. Instead, this looks to be a problem with how the console registers how much charge is actually left — leaving fans to be told they’re almost out of juice when there’s still hours of power left.

Nintendo’s initial recommendation here is to power off your Switch 2 and reboot the console in its secret Recovery Mode. This can be done by powering your Switch 2 on while holding down the volume up (+) and volume down (-) buttons while the console loads.

Simply loading into the Recovery Mode menu could be enough to reset your console’s battery and align it with the correct amount of charge remaining, Nintendo said.

If that doesn’t work, Nintendo also recommended a more convoluted set of steps which essentially boil down to charging your Switch 2 up to 100% then leaving it to run down until it is almost empty, before charging it back up to 100% again.

“The battery charge indicator will improve gradually by repeating this process several times,” Nintendo says. Here are the details in full:

Complete these steps

1. Ensure the console has the latest system update.

2. Set all three Auto-Sleep mode settings to Never.

   • How to set Auto-Sleep mode settings to Never

     1. From the HOME Menu select System Settings.

     2. Scroll down the options on the left and select Sleep Mode.

     3. Set “Auto-Sleep (Playing on System Screen)”, “Auto-Sleep (Connected to TV)”, and “Auto-Sleep (Playing Media Content)” to Never.

3. Connect the AC adapter directly to the console.

4. Allow the console to charge until the battery is 100% fully charged, or until the console has been charging for at least three hours.

5. Leave the console alone and connected to the AC adapter for an additional hour.

6. When an hour has passed, disconnect the AC adapter from the console and allow the console to display the HOME Menu for approximately three to four hours.

   • The remaining battery life must be depleted as much as possible.

7. Once the battery charge is almost depleted, power off the console and leave it alone for at least 30 minutes.

8. Repeat steps 3 through 6 several times.

   • The battery charge indicator will improve gradually by repeating this process several times.

Should this still not solve the problem, Nintendo stated that your Switch 2 will likely need to be serviced.

Hopefully, the Switch 2’s hidden Recovery Mode is an option few fans will ever need to see. Still, if you want to press a few buttons to find some more Switch 2 secrets, you could do worse than go find the console’s hidden GameCube startup animations. And if you’re after other fun Switch 2 hacks, here’s a method to get your smartphone working as a Switch 2 camera — for much cheaper than the official Switch Camera cost.

Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social