Currently looking for a gamepad as I'm a bit annoyed by having no analog control on pedals when traveling with only a laptop. I'm also picking up new genres that may benefit from gamepad control.

I'm aware of many inductive or Hall effect joysticks used as gaming joysticks. However for gamepads it looks like everything is potentiometer-based nowadays. I understand the price of those contactless sensors can be a bit high for a typical gamepad but having a deadzone-free and drift-free controller is a common desire isn't it? Is there any inductive/Hall-effect/optical gamepad money can buy?


Anyway, contactless or not I need a recommendation. I'd like to have one that has long thumbsticks (long range of travel) and relatively heavy springs, with symmetrical thumbstick placement (PS layout, not XBox layout) and most importantly no built-in deadzone at either center or edge. Both wired and wireless will do fine and vibration doesn't interest me. If it's contactless that would be great. If it's potentiometer-based I guess I'll just calibrate or even replace it frequently. Which model can fit those requirements?

Interessting question, I think especially gamepad thumbstick would profit A LOT from being absolutely deadzone free because the motion that one does with one thumb are much smaller than the motion done with whole hand on a joystick or wheel.
But have never seen such thing.

They used to exist, more than 10 years ago. But I'm not aware of anything new.

Make one yourself, like I did

check this https://www.lfs.net/forum/thread/14176-micro-racing-wheel
and this post https://www.lfs.net/forum/post/1889748#post1889748

There are rotating pulso-meters out there that work a bit like wheel roller in a mouse. You can calibrate this and use the rotation movement to point the wheels in the right direction. Even have more than 270 deg rotation on a pad.

I have not seen any PC gamepads which use contactless technology.

The only two contactless gamepads that i know of were made by SEGA, the "Nights into Dreams" special 3D Pad for SEGA Saturn, and the bog standard SEGA Dreamcast gamepad. They use magnetic Hall sensors both for their long-travel triggers and for the analogue thumb stick. The stick assemblies differ between the two, but i'm only intimately familiar with Dreamcast one.

The Dreamcast pad centres rather nicely with a rather big spring, and it has a spring preload guide which gently nudges you towards 8 principal directions, but can make hitting an intermediate direction more difficult. The centring is not absolutely perfect because of tolerances between parts, but better than ALPS dual potentiometer, and the wear is almost non-existent, it doesn't shred itself. You can easily take it apart and lubricate it yourself, because the factory lubricant becomes sticky with time. The throw is rather large. The hat is small and not very comfortable, it can go between unpleasantly piercing and too slippery.

Dreamcast was certainly in love with racing game genre.

Don't believe the rumour that Dreamcast uses USB for its controllers. It's also a point to point network of similar bandwidth but it is not protocol compatible.

The Saturn pad doesn't contain a preload guide and i'm not sure how well it centers itself, i find the spring placement a bit questionable. I suppose it can work wonderfully, but i haven't had a chance to try it myself.