The Nintendo Switch 2 may be coming soon, perhaps at the end of this month However, it appears that this handheld gaming device is not the only hardware in development at Nintendo

Late last week, Nintendo filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), revealing that the company is working on a new wireless device; the listing, discovered by The Verge, does not reveal what the device actually is, but it clearly something other than a Switch 2

The application documents for this product list the model number CLO-001, suggesting that this is a new product line from Nintendo Previous devices such as the original Switch (HAC-001) and the Nintendo DS (NTR-001) had similar “001” codes to designate the first entry in the new lineup

The new hardware does not appear to be a console or Joy-Con-like controller, as it is described as a “wireless device” The filing has a very simple diagram showing the location of the FCC label in the “hollowed-out area on the bottom” The device appears to be square with rounded corners The size of the device is unknown, but it does not appear to take up much space

As a wireless device, Nintendo's mystery device appears to lack most of the connectivity we would expect; it has neither 5GHz Wi-radio nor Bluetooth It does, however, have a 24Ghz mmWave sensor and a 24GHz Wi-Fi radio

It appears to need to be connected via USB-C, which could mean that it could potentially connect to a device like the Swtich via a docking station

The 24 GHz mmWave sensor gives a hint of what Nintendo is working on According to a paper from Texas Instruments, the short-wavelength system is highly accurate and “can detect movements as small as a fraction of a millimeter”

This means that this Nintendo device could use mmWave sensors to track movement or be used as a gesture controller To this end, the 24 GHz radar can have a detection range of up to 100 meters

Some guesses as to the direction Nintendo might be going in: the Joy-Con already functions as a small Wiimote, but Nintendo has had so much success with the Nintendo Wii that this could be a way for the company to innovate its console

With motion tracking, the company could be working on some sort of gesture control device or AR tracking Nintendo has played a bit with the Labo system and Mario Kart Live in game play, so this could be an improvement there

My guess, assuming we're not talking about a device for a theme park, is that this could mean a virtual reality product from Nintendo; the closest Nintendo has come to playing in a virtual reality space since Virtual Boy in the 90s, like turning the Switch into a VR display Labo Toy-Con 04 kit Like many Labo kits, it's very strange, but really interesting, even if there's not much you can do with it