Joy-Cons provided with many thanks to Dyeport.
Dyeport is a hydro-dipping company based in the USA. They remove the plastic parts of controllers, and then cover them in colorful artwork depicting some colorful characters, well-known faces, and a variety of other kinds of artwork.
Dyeport’s Hydro-Dipped Items
I was so excited to receive my Dyeport Joy-Cons in the mail! After cruising through the company’s website, I saw a little bit of everything on there, from PS4 and PS5 controller charging stations to Joy-Cons and Pro Controllers. They have a variety of designs to choose from too, including sports teams, anime, video games, and TV shows. Looking around on the site, I think my favourite of all the wraps had to be the “Nintella” Kirby controllers, which look like this:
So when the company offered to send LadiesGamers a pair of Dyeport Joy-Cons, I was stoked. The rep mailed me a style called the “Stay Cool Custom Design,” which is a unique art that has a sticker-collection kind of look to it.
The Joy-Cons Arrive in the Mail
When the controllers finally arrived, they were very well packaged. They were inside a bubble mailer, packaged in their original box. Each Joy-Con was wrapped carefully inside the box with bubble wrap as well, along with their removable straps, to keep from scratching during shipping.
My first impression of the controllers was a surprise; unlike the types of controller wraps, I was most familiar with, this felt like it was actually part of the controller from the beginning. It has a very smooth texture to it, and there was nothing to come off or stretch the design. The actual plastic parts of the controller had gone through a process called hydro-dipping and then covered in lacquer.
According to Dyeport’s website, the hydro-dipping process works like this:
- They fill a tank with water.
- The design is laid over the top of the water with a special machine that uses the surface tension of the water to keep the design in place.
- The controller cover is dipped into the water, allowing the image to completely cover the casing, allowing for better, smoother coverage over 3D objects.
- After it dries completely, they cover it with lacquer to keep the picture from fading and scratching.
How Dyeport’s Controllers Look and Feel
Although they are a little slicker than regular Joy-Cons, the Dyeport’s process doesn’t do much to alter the feel of the controllers. They didn’t feel rough, textured, or slippery, so they basically felt like a Joy-Con without the dip on the outside. After a few minutes of gaming, I basically forgot I was using anything different than a normal controller. The artwork feels like it is part of the Joy-Con, and that it had always looked like that.
That being said, the look of the Dyeport’s hydro-dipped Joy-Cons left a little something to be desired. Considering the expense of the controllers, I was a little disappointed with the visual appeal of the final product. These controllers come in at a wallet-lightening $250 USD retail, a price that can be brought down to about $179.99 USD with sales and coupons.
Considering that this is not artwork that had to be licensed by anyone, that’s more than $100 for the dipping process and shipping. I would understand if the licensed products like the Kirby, the Sanrio characters, or the Pokémon were more pricey, but it seems like a high price to pay for generic art that has been merged with the plastic parts of the controller.
The Art looked a little Faded on the Joy-cons
Some parts of the art looked a little faded; it looked a little bit like perhaps the surface of the Joy-Con wasn’t completely clean or properly processed. This little overly-pink part of the ERROR ERROR box looked like the shape of a thumbprint, maybe? Like it was touched just slightly before it was dipped, and that caused an issue with the final image.
Another problem I noticed was that since the starting colour of the controllers showed through in certain spots, the company did a poor job of matching up the Joy-Con colour with the art on the purple side. While the pink side was printed on Joy-Con’s Neon Red, the purple art was printed on Neon Green. This made some of the parts along the seam and on the inside look like a gross muddy brown; this would have looked much better printed on a Purple Joy-Con or literally anything other than green.
Conclusion
The colour and print cons I listed above might seem like nitpicks, but considering the cost of the controllers, I was mostly expecting them to be near perfect. I was very surprised that the lack of detail shown with the print: the lack of colour matching with the base colour of the controller, the base colour that showed through at the seams. Overall, the look is beautiful if flawed, though. The artwork doesn’t look stretched or distorted over the 3D surface.
Overall, I love these controllers and the way they look and feel. However, I also feel that if I had paid almost $200 USD for these controllers, I would have wanted them to be as perfect as possible.
Final Verdict: I Like it.
Very interesting! Hydrodipping looks amazing l, but I’ve often found myself wondering about the environmental impact fof putting those colors on water. What happens during the disposal process? I’ll read up on it someday.