Understanding Your Grade
Your grade evaluates the geometric perfection of the thumbstick module's outer boundary.
A+ (Esports Ready) means the stick achieves a flawless circle, critical for consistent diagonal movement in games like Apex Legends and Rocket League.
F (Defective) indicates severe asymmetry, meaning diagonal inputs will hit their max value prematurely or not at all.
Since you're using a Nintendo Switch Pro with a Hall Effect module, you can expect the underlying tech to be extremely precise and symmetric.
The Switch Pro Controller's stick sits in a snug, closed gate, so housing friction adds noise near the rim and can make a healthy stick look slightly less circular than it is. Before concluding the module itself is asymmetric, clean the gate with a cotton swab and isopropyl alcohol and re-run the test — debris under the stick collar is a frequent cause of rim wobble on Pro pads.
Hall effect sticks measure stick position with a magnetic field instead of a physical wiper dragging across a carbon track. Because nothing rubs, the module keeps its geometric precision for far longer and shows almost no rim-to-rim variance when new. The practical result on a circularity graph is a tight, evenly distributed ring: your diagonals reach maximum extension together, with little wasted input near the corners. The trade-off is that calibration is digital, so a poor grade on a Hall effect module usually points to a firmware zero-point offset or a loose joystick gate rather than worn carbon.
Hall effect modules stay round because the magnetic Hall cell reads position without contact, which means the failure modes are digital rather than mechanical. If a Hall stick grades poorly, look for a zero-point offset in the controller firmware or a magnet that has shifted in its holder — both produce a clean, uniform error rather than the patchy ring of worn carbon. Since there is no track to wear, a Hall module that grades badly on day one is almost always a calibration or assembly issue, and re-running the test after a firmware reset frequently recovers a full A-grade ring.
On the Switch Pro, the snug gate means the reading is a mix of sensor and housing behavior, so a mediocre grade should trigger a cleaning pass before any conclusion. If the ring improves after cleaning, the module is fine and the friction was housing debris. If a Pro pad still grades poorly after cleaning, the usual cause is a worn stick collar that lets the stick tilt off-axis — that produces a consistent oval on one axis, which is mechanically distinct from the squircle pattern seen on Xbox pads.
The Pro Controller's compact stick module is shared with the Nintendo Switch Joy-Con platform lineage, and that family is known for early stick degradation reports, so a poor grade on a Pro pad deserves more weight than the same grade on a newer Hall-effect unit. The snug gate also means the stick collar friction shows up directly in the rim data, which can obscure a genuinely healthy sensor beneath housing noise. Clean the collar first, grade again, and only then compare the result against the model's typical behavior — a clean ring after a debris-free pass is a strong signal the module itself is fine.