You’ve plotted some data in Matplotlib but you don’t know which data shows what? It’s time for a legend!

How to add a legend in Python’s Matplotlib library?

• Label it with the label keyword argument in your plot method.
• Before plt.show(), call plt.legend() your plot will be displayed with a legend.

Here’s the minimal example:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt plt.plot([1, 2, 3], [1, 4, 9], label='squares')

plt.plot([1, 2, 3], [1, 8, 27], label='cubes') plt.legend()

plt.show()

In the following video, I’ll lead you through the article, step by step.

Prettier Example

# Import necessary modules

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

import numpy as np # Optional: Use seaborn style as it looks nicer than matplotlib's default

import seaborn as sns; sns.set() # Generate data

vals = np.array([0, 1, 2, 3, 4]) # Plot and label

plt.plot(vals, label='vals') plt.legend()

plt.show()

If you plot and label multiple lines, the legend will contain multiple entries.

plt.plot(vals, label='Linear')

plt.plot(vals**2, label='Squared')

plt.plot(vals**0.5, label='Square Root') plt.legend()

plt.show()

You can combine different types of plot – scatter, line, histogram etc. – but you may have to specify the colors manually if you do.

import random # Set seed to reproduce results

random.seed(1) # Generate random data

x = [random.random() for _ in range(100)]

y = [random.random() for _ in range(100)] # Scatter plot

plt.scatter(x, y, label='Data') # Red line plot acting as the 'line of best fit'

plt.plot([0, 1], label='Best Fit', c='r')

plt.legend()

plt.show()

In this example, I first generated some random data before making a scatter plot from it. Then, I drew a line plot on top of it to act as the line of best fit (note that this is just an example and isn’t actually the line of best fit for this dataset!). Unfortunately, matplotlib does not automatically change the color of each plot if you plot a line and a scatter plot on top of each other. So, I manually changed it to red with the c keyword argument.

To learn more about Python’s random module, check out my article.

Let’s dive into a more detailed example of how legends work in matplotlib.

Matplotlib Legend Example

To display a legend on any plot, you must call plt.legend() at some point in your code – usually, just before plt.show() is a good place.

There are 3 ways you can call it:

1. plt.legend()
2. plt.legend(labels)
3. plt.legend(handles, labels)

The first option – plt.legend() – automatically detects which elements to show. It does this by displaying all plots that have been labeled with the label keyword argument. The order of the lines in the legend are the same as the order you plot them.

vals = np.array([0, 1, 2, 3, 4]) # Plot vals first

plt.plot(vals, label='vals') # Plot vals/2 second

plt.plot(vals/2, label='vals/2') # Call plt.legend() without arguments

plt.legend()

plt.show()

First I plotted vals and then plotted vals/2. You can see that vals is displayed first in the legend and is a blue line. Now let’s swap the order.

# Plot vals/2 first

plt.plot(vals/2, label='vals/2') # Plot vals second

plt.plot(vals, label='vals') # Call plt.legend() without arguments

plt.legend()

plt.show()

Now vals/2 is displayed first in the legend and is colored blue. By changing the order of the plots, you change not only the order in the legend but also the colors of the lines.

Note: you can manually control the colors using the c keyword argument if you want to.

The second option –plt.legend(labels) – is rarely used but I’ll show you what it does just for completeness.

The argument labels must be an iterable – most likely a list or tuple – containing the labels you want to display in the legend. Instead of explicitly labeling each line you draw like so:

plt.plot(x_1, label='plot_1')

plt.plot(x_2, label='plot_2')

plt.legend()

plt.show()

You do not label any of the lines explicitly and instead label them based on the order they appear:

plt.plot(x_1)

plt.plot(x_2)

plt.legend(['plot_1', 'plot_2'])

plt.show()

This method does work but can cause you a lot of headaches. For example, the iterable labels must be exactly the same length as the number of lines you draw. Moreover, if you change the order of any of your plots, you must also change the order of the elements in labels. Lastly, it violates The Zen of Python Explicit is better than implicit because you implicitly label each plot based on its order.

It is much easier for everyone if you explicitly label each of the plots rather than implicitly doing so like this. Thus, both the matplotlib docs and I do not recommend you use this method.

The final method – plt.legend(handles, labels) – provides you with the most flexibility but takes slightly longer to write.

Both handles and labels are iterables – usually lists or tuples. The handles are the lines you wish to appear on the legend and the labels are, as I hope you know by now, the word(s) you want to appear in the legend next to each line.

# Save plots with descriptive variable names

linear, = plt.plot(vals)

sqrt, = plt.plot(vals**0.5) # Create iterables handles and labels

handles = [linear, sqrt]

labels = ['Linear', 'Square Root'] # Pass handles and lables to plt.legend()

plt.legend(handles, labels)

plt.show()

First, you must save the output of each line in a variable. The function plt.plot() returns a list of length 1, so you must unpack it by putting a comma after your variable name to get the value inside the list. The value is a matplotlib.lines.Line2D object which is how matplotlib stores lines.

# linear_wrong is a list of length 1

linear_wrong = plt.plot(val) # linear_correct is a Line2D object - what you want

linear_correct, = plt.plot(val)

For ease of reading, I created the lists handles and labels which I then passed to plt.legend(). You can skip this intermediate step if you wish.

The biggest advantage of this method is that you have total control of the order in which the legend’s items appear: the order you pass handles is the order they will appear. This means you can plot them in any order you want and still control the order of the legend entries. This is in contract to method 1 where the order you plot your lines is the order they appear in the legend.

So, to make Square Root appear as the first entry in the legend, do the following.

linear, = plt.plot(vals)

sqrt, = plt.plot(vals**0.5) # Swap order of sqrt and linear

handles_ = [sqrt, linear]

labels_ = ['Square Root', 'Linear'] plt.legend(handles_, labels_)

plt.show()

In this plot, the color of the lines has not changed but the order in the legend has changed because I changed the lists handles and labels.

Finally, one thing many Python programmers don’t know is that if your label starts with an underscore, it will not be displayed in the legend. This may be useful if you have many plots and want to be able to easily scan the code but not display the names in the plots.

# No legend displayed because of underscore

plt.plot(vals, label='_I will not be displayed')

plt.legend()

plt.show()

No handles with labels found to put in legend.

Matplotlib Legend Location

To change the location of a legend in matplotlib, use the loc keyword argument in plt.legend().

By default, matplotlib draws the legend in the ‘best’ location i.e. the place that overlaps the least with the lines drawn. This can be slow if you plot a lot of data, so manually setting a location can speed up the process.

To manually set it, use the loc keyword and one of these 10, self-explanatory, strings:

• ‘upper right’, ‘upper left’, ‘upper center’
• ‘lower right’, ‘lower left’, ‘lower center’
• ‘center right’ or ‘center left’
• ‘right’ or ‘center’ (for some reason, ‘left’ is not an option)

Here are some examples of putting the legend in different locations. If you are unsure how to plot subplots in matplotlib, check out my article.

fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=1, ncols=3, figsize=plt.figaspect(1/3)) # Differnet legend locations

locations = ['best', 'upper center', 'lower left'] for ax, loc in zip(axes.flat, locations): ax.plot(vals, label='vals') ax.set_title(f"Legend loc='{loc}") # Set legend location ax.legend(loc=loc)

plt.show()

You can change the default location for all plots by setting plt.rcParams['legend.loc'] to the loc value of your choice.

Finally, you can choose any coordinate points by passing a 2-tuple to loc instead of a string. This will specify the location of the lower-left corner of the legend as a fraction of the axes. So setting loc=(0.5, 0.5) will place the bottom left corner half way along the x-axis and half way along the y-axis.

plt.plot(vals, label='vals') # Set location of legend

plt.legend(loc=(0.5, 0.5)) plt.title('Legend loc=(0.5, 0.5)')

plt.show()

If you input loc=(2, 2) you get a very stange looking graph because matplotlib places the legend at double the length and double the height of the axes.

plt.plot(vals, label='vals') # Set location of legend

plt.legend(loc=(2, 2)) plt.title('Legend loc=(2, 2)')

plt.show()

Of course, it is possible to place the legend at any coordinate point you want. Just remember to scale it by the maximum x- and y-axis values (both 4 in this example). So, to place the legend at the coordinate points (2, 3), pass loc=(2/4, 3/4).

plt.plot(vals, label='vals') # Set location of legend

plt.legend(loc=(2/4, 3/4)) plt.title('Legend at coordiante points (2, 3)')

plt.show()

Matplotlib Legend Font Size

To change the fontsize of a legend, use the fontsize keyword argument. It can take any int or float – the absolute size in points. Try lots of different sizes to get a feel for it.

You can also pass one of several strings:

['xx-small', 'x-small', 'small', 'medium', 'large', 'x-large', 'xx-large']

These are all relative to the current default font size. Let’s look at some examples.

fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=1, ncols=3, figsize=plt.figaspect(1/3)) # Different font sizes to try

fonts = ['xx-small', 'medium', 'x-large'] for ax, font in zip(axes.flat, fonts): ax.plot(vals, label='vals') ax.set_title(f"Legend fontsize='{font}'") # Set fontsize in legend ax.legend(fontsize=font) plt.show()

Matplotlib Legend Title

To add a title to a legend use the title keyword argument.

plt.plot(vals, label='vals') # Add title to legend

plt.legend(title='My Awesome Legend')

plt.show()

Matplotlib Legend Title Font Size

To change the font size of the title for a legend in matplotlib use the title_fontsize keyword argument. Like the fontsize keyword argument, it accepts any int or float – the absolute size in points – or one of the fontsize strings.

The matplotlib docs are actually incorrect because they say that title_fontsize only accepts a string or None.

fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=1, ncols=3, figsize=plt.figaspect(1/3)) # Differnet fontsizes to try

title_size = ['large', 5, None] for ax, size in zip(axes.flat, title_size): ax.plot(vals, label='vals') ax.set_title(f"Legend title_fontsize={size}") # Set title_fontsize of the legend ax.legend(title='My Awesome Legend', title_fontsize=size)

plt.show()

Matplotlib Legend Color

You can change both the facecolor and edgecolor of a legend using those keyword arguments in the function call.

The facecolor is the main color and the edgecolor is, you guessed it, the color around the edge of the box.

fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=2, ncols=2) # facecolors to choose

colors = ['red', 'blue', 'green', 'yellow'] for ax, color in zip(axes.flat, colors): ax.plot(vals, label=color) # Set facecolor of the legend ax.legend(facecolor=color)

plt.show()

Let’s do the same now but just change the edge color.

fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=2, ncols=2) # Edgecolors to choose

colors = ['red', 'blue', 'green', 'yellow'] for ax, color in zip(axes.flat, colors): ax.plot(vals, label=color) # Choose edgecolor of legend ax.legend(edgecolor=color)

plt.show()

Of course, you can mix and match the face and edge colors to your heart’s content.

fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=2, ncols=2) # Colors to use

colors = ['red', 'blue', 'green', 'yellow'] # Same as colors but reversed

edges = colors[::-1] for ax, color, edge in zip(axes.flat, colors, edges): ax.plot([0, 1, 2, 3, 4], label=color) # Choose both the facecolor and edgecolor ax.legend(facecolor=color, edgecolor=edge)

plt.show()

Matplotlib Legend Order

To learn how to order elements in a legend, check out the Matplotlib Legend Example section.

Matplotlib Legend Background Color

To learn how to change the background color of a legend, check out the Matplotlib Legend Color section.

Conclusion

That’s it, you now know all the basics of working with legends in matplotlib.

You know the three different ways to call the function – plt.legend(), plt.legend(labels) and plt.legend(handles, labels) – you know how to set its location with both strings and coordinate points. Plus you can change the font size, set a title and even change the font size of the title. Lastly, you can jazz up your legends by setting the facecolor or edgecolor to anything you want.

Where To Go From Here?

Do you wish you could be a programmer full-time but don’t know how to start?

Check out the pure value-packed webinar where Chris – creator of Finxter.com – teaches you to become a Python freelancer in 60 days or your money back!

https://tinyurl.com/become-a-python-freelancer

It doesn’t matter if you’re a Python novice or Python pro. If you are not making six figures/year with Python right now, you will learn something from this webinar.

These are proven, no-BS methods that get you results fast.

This webinar won’t be online forever. Click the link below before the seats fill up and learn how to become a Python freelancer, guaranteed.

https://tinyurl.com/become-a-python-freelancer

With many people looking for a way to pass the next few weeks, this Humble Bundle might come at the perfect time.  The Coding Starter Kit by No Starch Press Bundle is a collection of eBooks from No Starch about teaching kids and beginners programming, often through the lens of game development.  As with all Humbles, this bundle is organized into tiers.

1$ Tier

• Lauren Ipsum: A Story About Computer Science and Other Improbable Things
• The Official ScratchJr Book
• 25 Scratch 3 Games For Kids
• Build Your Own Website.  A Comic Guide to HTML, CSS and WordPress
• Make Your Own Scratch Games!
• Super Scratch Programming Adventure!

8$ Tier

• A Beginner’s Guide to Circuits
• Learn Robotics With Raspberry Pi
• Micro:bit For Mad Scientists
• JavaScript for Kids
• Electronics for Kids

15$ Tier

• Coding with Minecraft
• Python For Kids
• Doing Math with Python
• Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python
• Mission Python – Code a Space Adventure Game!

As with all Humble Bundles, you get to decide how your money is allocated, between Humble, the Publisher, charity and if you so choose (and thanks if you do!) to support GFS is purchased using this link.  You can learn more about the bundle in the video below.

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GameDev News Sale

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Today we’re talking about multiplayer games, whether they be on iPhone (or iPad), Android or Windows Phone (lolz). There are fairly significant games out there that you can play with your friends locally, and then vast, massively multiplayer experiences that you can play online. Granted, a lot of these venture into Free-to-Play territory but it’s come to a point where we can’t ignore them.

What are the best multiplayer iPhone & Android games?

• Mucho Party
• Fortnite
• Identity V
• Clash of Clans
• Heads Up!
• Spaceteam
• Hades Star
• Talisman: Digital Edition
• Arena of Valor 
• Triple Agent
• Worms 4
• Words With Friends 

Presented for the curious, here is a list of multiplayer iphone & android games across all types, as well as local party games to help liven up a gathering. For those of you who’ve been paying attention, yes this is similar to the ‘Best Party Games’ feature we had – as an experiment I decided to ask Michael to give it an overhaul with a new focus. Enjoy!

Mucho Party

Developer: GlobZ
Platforms: iTunes, Android
Price: Free (effectively a trial with limited games), $3.99 one-time IAP for full unlock.

Sample a sumptuous variety of mini-games with inspired and easily-digested twists with goofy facial reactions, and deft touch controls. Your player avatar has an oversized head with a handful of emote options which are customizable: just snap a few photos of your mug with exaggerated expressions and mild hilarity ensues. Yes, the new Mario Party is a classic return to form but Mucho Party is a really nice substitute available for the price of a song. A hidden gem.

Fortnite

Developer: Epic
Platforms: iOS, Android
Price: Free

Fortnite fever shows no chance of breaking anytime soon; the game continues to generate its own hype through cross-overs and events like Thanos’s brief appearance or the sudden appearance of that black hole. It has crafting and the Battle Royale last-man-standing appeal. This phenomenon came from nowhere and isn’t going anywhere for the foreseeable future. Both it and PUGB (Player Unknown Battlegrounds) are still the golden standard for Battle Royale games, and until Apex launches on mobile, I don’t see them being unseated.

Identity V

Developer: NetEase Games
Platforms:  iOS, Android
Price: Free

One hunter chases four innocents across a gothic manse while the would-be escapees struggle to find and solve puzzles. The asymmetry and creepy-cute aesthetic make for a thrilling and iconic experience. The devs are always experimenting with new play modes (like the 8v2 for starters) and the hunt-or-be-hunted setup is a timely mix of the survival- and battle-royale games so en vogue these days. Add in a splash of progression (skill trees, new and unusual characters, cosmetic unlocks) and you have a winner.

Clash of Clans

Developer: Supercell
Platforms: iOS, Android
Price: Free

Clash of Clans is an august title dating all the way back to 2012. Supercell’s launched a billion other projects since and they all have similar DNA: easy core gameplay loops with short bursts of required activity and an addictive structure. Oh, and they’re all free-to-play with boosts and shortcuts tucked not-so-discreetly away behind a paywall. Clash is the original and still among the greats, though it has some issues with plateaus and top-level play, the ramping up to the endgame is still a delight.

Heads Up! 

Developer: Warner Bros.
Platforms: iOS, Android
Price: $0.99, Free (android). Optional IAP to unlock extra category modes.

Heads Up! Was a victim of its own success for a time. The game is dead simple: a word appears on screen and is held above the guesser’s head. This same guesser is assailed by clues from teammates until the guesser finds the right word or phrase . Cycling through words quickly to rack up a high score, switching up the guessing role amongst team members. Heads Up! has one simple advantage over every other game on this list: it doesn’t need a surface to work. Works just as great standing or crammed together in a vehicle. Anywhere with good sight lines is fair game for Heads Up! short of a hall of mirrors. It’s so good that it’s cliche, at risk of getting played to death and forgotten. In case you’ve never given it a chance with a bored group, do.

Spaceteam

Developer: Henry Smith
Platforms: iOS, Android
Price: Free

Masquerading as chaos and nonsense, Spaceteam never fails to gin up a riotous good time. Navigating the reaches of space takes technical know-how and precise coordination, and Spaceteam spoofs these facts of spacetime-travel by splitting up instructions from control panels. Someone knows which button to press, and where, but the orders and details are deliberately turned into techno-speak-gibberish. Jabbering, giddy gibbons sharing gibberish…in space. Seriously though, the game works wonders for those improvisational types who thrive on chaos and unprecedented social situations. Oh, and it allows for cross-platform play between Android and iOS.

Hades’ Star

Developer: Parallel Space Inc.
Platforms: iOS, Android
Price: Free

Hades’ Star has a persistent, dynamic and massive world whose contours are shaped by the collective actions of the players. In this respect, it’s like a bite-sized EVE Online, though a tad simpler. I’ve always found that vast settings make the crawl of real-time games more palatable, like with Subterfuge. Situated in outer space, the 4X stages of explore and expand take a good amount of time, but that deliberation is the best part of Hades Star.

It suffers from a little free-to-play structure in its later stages, I guess, but it isn’t really a game which makes sense to binge, so the premium currency of ‘crystals’ is for those who want to play faster on their own terms. A little-known treat for fans of MMOs, 4X or the outer reaches of the universe.

Talisman: Digital Edition

Developer: Asmodee Digital
Platforms:  iOS, Android
Price: $3.99, $3.49. See here for an extensive DLC guide.

Talisman is a wild time and a mess, digital or analogue, but it’s markedly tidier and every bit as much of a caper on the good old ‘pad. Collecting magic artefacts, spells and literal pieces of fate and destiny as the hour grows late. It’s a classic and epic game, but also well suited to casual meet-and-greets, too. Because each turn’s decisions are relatively simple and straightforward, players can banter, chow down or otherwise divert themselves without hampering the flow of the gameplay at all.

Arena of Valor

Developer: Tencent
Platforms: iOS, Android
Price: Free, IAP for cosmetics and other unlocks

Deliberately as evocative of League of Legends as possible, this one is a good game with a few caveats. First, the monetization is not especially burdensome but hard to ignore. Secondly, the controls work pretty well but since the Switch version came out they feel second fiddle, in terms of responsivity. Still, you can experience a polished and mature MOBA with respectable mechanics, tutorials and matchmaking. It’s not quite as vibrant a scene as it used to be, but Arena of Valor is still a rush to play.

Triple Agent

Developer: Tasty Rook
Platforms: iOS, Android
Price: Free

Triple Agent is a mixture of chaos and order, of ineffective backstabs, liars giving useful tips and honest fools botching the naked truth. It’s a find-the-betrayer style party game, just like Mafia and Werewolf, but what sets it apart from its ilk, aside from a whip-smart app and panoply of extra optional win conditions, is the total miniaturisation of the experience. One device is passed around to dole out identities, clues and the final elimination vote. The group at the end of the chaotic play session collectively eliminates one person, and if they were a Good Guy the Bad Guys win and vice versa. Really fresh interface and game design take on an old standard.

Worms 4

Developer: Team17
Platforms:  iOS, Android
Price: $4.99

Worms are good for the earth, enriching the soil and setting the fields for a rich harvest next season. Worms from Team 17, on the other hand, spend all their lives trading quips and aiming impractical and ultraviolent weapons at each other. Carpet bombs, napalm, the holy hand grenade, anything and everything is an instrument of death in Worms. The terrain is destructible too, and the only ‘loot crate’ drops are just in-game goodies and not a euphemism for scummy monetisation. This is a premier zany 2D shootout, decades old and no worse for wear.

Words With Friends 2

Developer: Zynga
Platforms: iOS, Android
Price: Free

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Whoof, Words with Friends is a veritable dinosaur, dating back practically to the first days of the iPhone itself. It is an excellent multiplayer game because it accommodates all kinds of time commitments and skill levels. Yes, it’s a duo affair but so good it bears repeating. A simple word game gets even better with asynchronous play and friends list integration, so that when a moment of creative insight strikes, you can quickly convert it into a witty and devastating turn of phrase. It’s like texting, but with a score attached.

Other Party & Multiplayer Game Recommendations

• Royal Adviser
• Soul Knight
• Psych
• Mysterium
• Legends of Andor

What are your favourite multiplayer games? Let us know in the comments!

[This message comes directly from the desk of Matthew Miller, the Fedora Project Leader.  — Ed.] 

Congratulations to the Fedora community for the upcoming on-time release of Fedora 32 Beta. While we’ve gotten better at hitting our schedule over the years, it’s always nice to celebrate  a little bit each time we do. But that may not be what’s on your mind this week. Like you, I’ve been thinking a lot about the global COVID-19 pandemic. During the Beta period, many of us were unaffected by this outbreak, but as the effects intensify around the world, the month between now and the final release will be different.

“Friends” is the first of our Four Foundations for a reason: Fedora is a community. The most important Fedora concerns right now are your health and safety. Many of you are asked to work from home, to practice social distancing, or even to remain under quarantine. For some of you, this will mean more time to contribute to your favorite open source projects. For others, you have additional stress as partners, kids, and others in your life require additional care. For all of us, the uncertainty weighs on our minds.

I want to make one thing very clear: do not feel bad if you cannot contribute to the level you want to. We always appreciate what you do for the Fedora community, but your health — both physical and mental — is more important than shipping a release. As of right now, we’re planning to continue on schedule, but we understand that the situation is changing rapidly. We’re working on contingency plans and the option of delaying the Fedora 32 release remains on the table.

As you may already know, the Fedora Council has decided to refrain from sponsoring events through the end of the May. We will continue to re-evaluate this as the global situation changes. Please follow the directions of your local public health authorities and keep yourself safe.

Combat Systems

Abilities

Player Identity Systems

Emblems

Clans

Accessories

Investment

User Interface

Frontline – General Bug Fixes / Quality of Life

(Frontline is a team dedicated to fixing an assortment of issues, no matter their area. Say hello!)

Crucible

Performance

Nintendo of America is the latest game company to urge employees to work from home, this time after an employee working in its Redmond offices tested positive for the coronavirus.

Notably, Nintendo is allowing staff in Washington and California (two U.S. states that have been hit especially hard by the outbreak) to work from home as a “precautionary step” following the test.

“We have determined that the individual had contact with other employees and we have notified those employees to the situation,” a Nintendo rep told The Hollywood Reporter. “All impacted employees are now self-quarantining, whether they are experiencing symptoms or not.”

This comes more than a week after fellow Washington-based game companies Bungie and Microsoft made a show of rolling out remote work infrastructures and allowing their staff to work from home for an extended period. Around the same time, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said that while he wasn’t a big believer in staff working from home, “one unexpected consequence [of the coronavirus outbreak] is a lot of us who are skeptical about remote work are gonna be less skeptical about it.”

Update: An earlier version of this story mistakenly implied that Nintendo of America had instituted this work from home policy in response to the positive coronavirus test, when in fact the company announced it last week.

© Nintendo Life

Update #3 [Sun 15th Mar, 2020 15:00 GMT]: The Kickstarter is now live again, and we’ve had an official statement from Better Digi:

Dear Dongii fans,

First of all, thanks to all backers’ love right from the beginning. A few days ago we got a little problem with Nintendo copyright. Our company highly respects intellectual property protection, and we were unintentional to infringe on Nintendo’s copyright by using the Nintendo game scene in the introduction of product function. But it just showed in the product’s use cases, we never intended to use the games character’s image to promote our products. We apologize to the copyright party and will resolve it properly. Our team will be more careful with the copyright-protected content and provide better services for you in the future. And we have submitted our own product’s patent. We highly valued intellectual property protection and product innovation and want to build a good community with all of you.

As we all know, Kickstarter always advocates and encourages innovation. It is a fair platform and helps tons of outstanding products to get support and moving the development of technology forward. I believe this is also how all backers think about Kickstarter. We highly value each of your precise options. Our production is still ongoing to deliver the prime output for all of our backers after the campaign end. We really appreciate the early backers’ support and trust and we have prepared an exquisite gift for every backer who still supports us until now. Your support and trust is our motivation.

Thanks,

CEO of Better DiGi Team

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Update #2 [Mon 9th Mar, 2020 11:40 GMT]: Bigger Digi has told us why the Kickstarter was pulled – it was due to the use of a Nintendo copyright-protected game in the materials used for the campaign. The Kickstarter is coming back ‘soon’, along with a more detailed statement from the company’s CEO.

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Update #1 [Fri 6th Mar, 2020 14:00 GMT]: Since the feature was written, the Kickstarter campaign has been taken down due to an “intellectual property dispute”. When the campaign launched, a second campaign – branded as ‘fake’ by Better Digi – also went live. Whether or not this is related, we’ll no doubt find out soon. We’ve reached out to Better Digi and will update this piece with its response when we have it.

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Yesterday, we announced the news that Better Digi’s Dongii – a Switch dock that’s small enough to fit in your pocket – had hit crowdfunding platform Kickstarter. We’ve actually had one of these units at the Nintendo Life office for a few weeks now, and have been putting it through its paces to see what all the fuss is about. The good news? This tiny little device is something of a game-changer, not only giving Switch owners a cheap alternative to the expensive and hard-to-find official dock, but also a wonderfully portable option which can easily be transported with the console if you’re visiting a friend and fancy some docked action.

The Dongii joins Human Things’ Genki Convert Dock in the category of teeny, tiny Switch docks and has a single male USB-C on one side, which plugs into the power supply (more on that in a second). On the other, it offers three ports: HDMI, USB-C and USB-A. The first two are pretty self-explanatory; they connect the Dongii to your TV and Switch respectively. The latter is for connecting physical devices, such as wired controllers. There’s also Bluetooth 5.0 capability so you can connect the unit to wireless audio devices like headphones, with pairing handled by a physical button on the Dongii itself (it’s worth noting that the cheapest version of the Dongii lacks Bluetooth support).

However, the Dongii itself is only part of the picture – it needs to be connected to a USB-C charger to work properly, and even then, it has to be a charger that will supply the required juice. When fully assembled, the unit is significantly smaller than the original Switch dock, which, lest we forget, also needs a bulky power supply to operate. The final unit will ship with its own 65W GaN charger, but this wasn’t ready when our review unit was sent to us, so we’ve used a standard 45W USB-C power block.

© Nintendo Life

While this powers the Dongii just fine, it doesn’t provide the fast-charging capability of the more potent 65W dock. It’s also not as nice to look at as it obviously hasn’t been designed with the Dongii in mind, but the final product will look a lot more appealing. Another plus to the Dongii’s charger being detachable is that you can plug it directly into any portable power bank that supports USB-C PD and supplied the correct amount of power – combine this setup with a portable screen, like the C-Force CF016XT, and you’re taking your ‘on-the-road’ setup to a whole new level.

Of course, when it comes to third-party docks, the question of safety is always present. We’ve had reports of docks bricking Switch consoles in the past, with some suggesting that, in the early days of USB-C, the protocol wasn’t standard across all products. However, according to Better Digi, the Dongii benefits from “years of optimisation” and “countless rounds of testing”, which means it “delivers the proper voltage and amperage to the Switch based on its battery level and ensures the best and safest performance”.

While we can’t categorically say this is totally true, we didn’t experience any issues using the Dongii over the past few weeks, even when running it through the aforementioned third-party charger. Better Digi also claims that because the Switch isn’t actually ‘docked’ during use, heat build-up is less of an issue. We’ve all heard the anecdotal reports of consoles ‘warping’ as they get hot inside the dock, but we’re not sure it’s as widespread a problem as Better Digi might have you believe.

Dongii is a great accessory for your Switch, then, but that’s not the end of its usefulness; because it supports the USB-C standard, it can also be used with devices other than your Switch, such as laptops. The USB-A port allows you to plug in flash drives and other accessories, and you can even use the device to connect your smartphone to a monitor, turning it into a computer you can carry in your pocket (assuming it has the functionality that is, like Samsung’s phones). It’s capable of outputting up to 4K resolution for this purpose.

Starting at just $29 via its crowdfunding campaign (it then rises to $65), the Dongii is likely to become a must-have device for Switch owners. It has already doubled its initial Kickstarter target of $10,000, and if you’re currently on the fence about supporting this crowdfunding campaign, we’d recommend you give it a shot – especially if you’re a keen traveller or are simply in the market for a second dock in your home.