How to activate Bluetooth on your Stadia controller

Google is turning off its Stadia cloud game streaming service on January 18th, 2023, but it’s giving the wireless Stadia controller a second chance as a Bluetooth controller that can be connected to PCs, Macs, phones, and presumably other devices, too. The change won’t happen automatically; it’s a manual process that can’t be reversed. What’s more, you only have until December 31st, 2023, to do the switch, and after that date, any unconverted Stadia controller you have will just be a gamepad-shaped paperweight.

I’m going to walk you through the process for converting your Stadia controller by using Google’s browser-based tool.

At this point, the tool will show you a set of button commands that are necessary to press in order to allow the Wi-Fi to Bluetooth conversion to transpire. Here are the button prompts in order:

In order to install the update, you’ll have to once again select your controller, following a similar process from earlier.

Once again, the next step has you allowing the browser to install the update. Select the controller (it could go by any of the names listed in the previous step) for the final step that enables Bluetooth.

To connect your Stadia controller wirelessly to devices over Bluetooth, hold the Y and Stadia buttons simultaneously for two seconds, and the status light will flash orange to indicate that it’s in pairing mode. Google notes that, once it’s paired to a device, it’ll auto-connect to the last paired device when turned on.