Investigations

Nintendo Just Certified Its EU-Only Battery-Revision Switch 2 Controllers—With the U.S. FCC

By Nia Oct 9, 2026 6 min read Industry Hardware Console Economics AI Memory

Excerpt: On October 8, 2026, Nintendo obtained three new FCC equipment authorizations—the "-01" revisions of the Switch 2 Pro Controller, Joy-Con 2 (L), and Joy-Con 2 (R). Those are the exact model numbers Nintendo's own support pages label "user-replaceable battery" and tag with the "OSM" code. Nintendo announced the revisions as a Europe-only change to satisfy a battery rule taking effect in the European Union. The FCC is the United States.

Three new Nintendo IDs, and what they correspond to

Nintendo's own equipment-authorization record in the United States gained exactly three entries on October 8, 2026. All three are "Game controller." All three are Nintendo Co., Ltd. filings under its own grantee code, BKE:

FCC ID BKEBEE00801, product code BEE00801 — Bluetooth 2.402–2.480 GHz, plus 13.56 MHz near-field, granted October 8, 2026.
FCC ID BKEBEE01201, product code BEE01201 — 2.402–2.480 GHz, granted October 8, 2026.
FCC ID BKEBEE01401, product code BEE01401 — 2.402–2.480 GHz, plus 13.56 MHz, granted October 8, 2026.

Strip the hyphens Nintendo's consumer-facing documentation uses and the correspondence is exact. Nintendo's model numbers for the Switch 2's launch controllers are BEE-008 (the Switch 2 Pro Controller), BEE-012 (Joy-Con 2, left) and BEE-014 (Joy-Con 2, right). The FCC product codes BEE00801, BEE01201 and BEE01401 read as BEE-008(-01), BEE-012(-01) and BEE-014(-01).

That suffix is not incidental. It is the single detail that turns three routine-looking certifications into a story.

What "-01" means, according to Nintendo

Nintendo's own support documentation is unusually explicit about that suffix. Its help page titled "How to identify whether your Joy-Con 2 controller contains a user-replaceable battery" draws the distinction in plain text:

"Joy-Con 2 (L): Model number BEE-012(-01), Code starts with 'OSM.'" "Joy-Con 2 (L): Model number BEE-012, Code starts with 'BEE.'" "BEE-012(-01): contains a user-replaceable battery." "BEE-012: contains a battery that is not user-replaceable."

The right-hand controller is documented the same way — "Joy-Con 2 (R): Model number BEE-014(-01), Code starts with 'OSM'" — and Nintendo's separate battery-replacement guides describe swapping a "Nintendo Battery Replacement Kit BEE-004(-01L)" into "the Joy-Con 2 (L) controller BEE-012(-01)."

So, by Nintendo's own definition, the "-01" model numbers are precisely the hardware revisions built with a user-replaceable battery, shipped under a separate "OSM" packaging code.

And on October 8, 2026, three FCC IDs bearing exactly those "-01" product codes were granted.

The change Nintendo said was Europe-only

In a support notice, Nintendo framed these revisions narrowly around geography:

"Starting summer 2026, in preparation for upcoming changes in European battery regulations coming into effect in mid-February 2027, selected Nintendo products in Europe will begin to be replaced on a rolling basis by revisions that contain a user-replaceable battery."

The same page lays out the rollout: the revised Switch 2 console ("October 2026"), the revised Joy-Con 2 pair ("this winter"), and the revised Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller ("this winter," with the battery shrinking from 1070 mAh to 897 mAh), followed by N64 and GameCube controllers in "early 2027." The regulation being referenced is the EU Batteries Regulation, whose user-replaceability requirement applies from February 18, 2027.

Read as published, that is a story about Europe. The FCC, however, is not a European regulator. Equipment authorization from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission is a requirement to market a radio device in the United States. Nintendo did not need to certify these revisions with the FCC to sell them only in the EU.

That leaves a defensible inference, and it is the point of this piece: the user-replaceable-battery controller revisions are being certified for the U.S. market. Nintendo has announced no such U.S. plan. The paperwork, quietly, indicates one.

The technical fingerprints

The filings look like genuine re-certifications rather than clerical re-issues, which is consistent with a physical change to the hardware:

New SAR data. The Pro Controller and Joy-Con 2 (R) filings include a two-part RF-exposure submission ("FCC SAR Test Report Part1/Part2"); the Joy-Con 2 (L) filing carries a single, larger SAR report (5.9 MB). SAR testing is the body-worn radio-exposure work you re-run when the enclosure or battery assembly changes.
A full radio re-test. Each filing re-submits the DSS (spread-spectrum), DTS (digital transmission) and, where applicable, DXX (low-power) test reports — not a permissive-change letter.
Confidentiality resets. All three request short- and long-term confidentiality, with the sealed exhibits (user manuals, internal/external photos, test-setup photos) carrying an availability date of April 7, 2027 — roughly six months after grant, the standard short-term window.
The same test house. UL Japan's Shonan EMC Laboratory, which handled the original launch filings, handled these.

One asymmetry is worth flagging. Nintendo lists the revised console as an "October 2026" product, yet no BKEBEE00101 (BEE-001-01) console filing appears in the record alongside these three controllers. Either the console revision's radio is unchanged enough not to require a fresh ID, or its certification is still pending. The controllers, which are body-worn and therefore SAR-relevant, moved first.

What the evidence does not prove

Three limits, stated plainly:

It is an inference, not a statement of fact, that Nintendo will sell these in the U.S. An FCC ID is a necessary condition for U.S. sale, not proof of intent to launch. Nintendo could, in principle, certify a global SKU and still route initial stock to Europe.
"-01" could denote more than the battery. The suffix reliably marks the "OSM" user-replaceable variant; it does not follow that the battery is the only change inside the shell.
No launch date, price, or U.S. retailer is implicated. The filings say nothing about when or where these revisions reach shelves.

Observed fact: three Nintendo controller FCC IDs were granted October 8, 2026, under product codes matching Nintendo's documented "-01"/"OSM" user-replaceable-battery revisions. Inference: those battery revisions are being certified for the U.S. market. Speculation: that this amounts to an imminent North American release — unsupported by anything in the record.

Why it slipped through

The June 2026 announcement that Europe would get user-replaceable-battery Switch 2 hardware was covered widely, from The Verge to Digital Foundry and Eurogamer — that reporting was about Nintendo's announcement, framed for Europe. The FCC IDs themselves, granted on October 8, have drawn no press at all: queries for the strings BEE00801, BEE01201 and BEE01401 return nothing.

What is new here is not a leak. It is the pairing of two public records — Nintendo's European support pages, which define what "-01"/"OSM" means, and the FCC's U.S. certification database, which just logged three of them. Neither document is a scoop on its own. Together they say something Nintendo has not: the EU-only battery fix appears to be headed for America.