AnkiDroid Support for 8BitDo Micro Controller in Pixel 8 Pro

AnkiDroid (Android) Help
1

I cannot seem to get my 8BitDo Micro Controller to work with AnkiDroid, which is on my Pixel 8 Pro. After configuring the Controls under setting, AnkiDroid ignores all my configured buttons, except button A, which immediately brings me back to the previous screen. Which means it works like a gamepad, not a reconfigured Anki controller.

I have read elsewhere that there may be Bluetooth issues with game controllers for Pixels, but I can’t confirm this.

Can anyone confirm if they too face this issue on their Pixels (or other phones), and if you can advise?

I have tried:

  1. Following instructions from various online instructions, including the AnKing guide and various Youtube guide.
  2. Checked Reddit and this forum, and majority of the info pertains to AnkiMobile or Anki on the desktop. I’m specifically looking for help on AnkiDroid.
  3. I, of course, already RTFM.
  4. The instructions states that I should set the setting to ‘S’, which is the game pad mode, but I’ve also tried ‘K’ which is Keyboard mode, and it also fails.
  5. I did not download and configure 8BitDo’s Ultimate software though. While I desperately want to use it for Anki, I also use it to turn pages on my Kindle app, and I don’t want to configure it beyond recognition (plus various guides didn’t seem to require the use of the Ultimate software, so…)

Here is my deck, for your reference:

  1. Question Screen:

    1. ankidroid - Q screen
    1. ankidroid - Q screen1344×2992 93.3 KB

  2. Answer Screen

    2. ankidroid - A screen
    2. ankidroid - A screen1344×2992 512 KB

  3. You can see that in the answer screen there’s media playback (pronounces the word and the sentence in Mandarin), and buttons configured to playback media also doesn’t work (at this point I don’t even care which one of the two media file it plays :slight_smile:, but neither gets played currently)

And this is my configuration setting:

3. ankidroid - controls settings
3. ankidroid - controls settings1344×2992 186 KB

Additional notes:

  1. I actually bought another controller before I got this 8BitDo Micro controller, which is the IINE mini Retro Ananke Controller. Pretty much the same thing, but from a different manufacturer, and it too had stated support for Anki. However it exhibited the same problem when using with AnkiDroid. I thought maybe it’s because it’s not an actual 8BitDo device which is why it doesn’t work, but disappointingly the 8BitDo also doesn’t work, hence this post.

Any help is appreciated!

AnkiDroid 2.22.3
Aug 2, 2025
(anki 25.07.5 / 7172b2d2)
(FSRS6)