Nintendo Switch: Transform the popular video games console into a drawing tool with Colors! Live and the Colors SonarPen

The Nintendo Switch is getting its own version of Colors!, the popular painting app and game. Originally conceived for the Nintendo DS in 2007, Jens Andersson has since brought Colors! to multiple devices including the Nintendo 3DS. Now, Andersson has developed Colors! Live for the Nintendo Switch, which comes with a pressure-sensitive pen. Called the SonarPen, the pen derives its pressure sensitivity from the Switch's headphone jack. Andersson explains that the SonarPen works as follows: 

It is a half-meter cable that plugs into the audio jack, and technically it pretends to be a headset. So, in Colors, it actually plays a tone through the audio. A tone of about 8000 hertz goes through the cable to the tip of the pen. There is a resistor in there as well that dampens the tone depending on the amount of pressure that is applied to the tip of the pen. This vibration goes back to the Switch through the internal microphone of the pen, which measures the volume of the sound. That calculates the pressure used on the screen. So the touch is recorded by the screen as normal, but the pressure goes through that thing. It is an ingenious idea.

Andersson has taken to Kickstarter to fund Colors! Live for the Nintendo Switch, where it has already received almost SEK 2,000,000 (~US$216,000) from over 3,500 backers. The campaign has 24 hours left to run and has met its funding target of SEK 150,000 (~US$16,268).

Colors! Live and the SonarPen are available to order from Kickstarter for SEK 370 (~US$41) and upwards. Andersson hopes to ship to backers in August, 2020. There are multiple support levels too, including Patron and Super Patron.

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