5 Tips for saving battery life in your PlayStation 4 controller

The PlayStation 4 is a brilliant system with an absolutely incredible selection of exclusive games. That means we’ve spent a lot of time with its wireless controller, the DualShock 4. While we appreciate its large face buttons, excellent touchpad, and fast, responsive triggers, the DualShock doesn’t have fantastic battery life. Typically, the DualShock 4 lasts four to eight hours of gameplay per charge (usually on the lower end of that range), much less than the Xbox One controller or Nintendo Switch Pro controller.

Why does the DualShock 4 battery drain so fast? Simple: It’s equipped with a 1000mAh battery, which is significantly smaller than the standard AA batteries used in the Xbox One gamepad. Unless you want to commit to a wired connection, you’ll need to take a few steps to get a life extra handy bit of your PlayStation 4 controller. Luckily, we’ve got a few tricks to help you avoid having to wait to play again.

Change controller shutdown time

From time to time, we all use our PlayStation 4 for more than just gaming. When you watch movies on Netflix or stream on Twitch, you don’t necessarily need to keep your DualShock 4 on all the time. To preserve your controller’s battery life, make sure your controller is set to turn off as quickly as possible when not in use.

To adjust the time delay before your DualShock 4 automatically turns off, go to PlayStation 4 settings menu and select Power saving settings. From there, you’ll see options to automatically power off the console, as well as sleep mode, and below is what you’re looking for: Set the time until the controller turns off. Change this to the lowest setting, 10 minutes, to minimize battery drain during breaks and during passive activities.

You can also find this setting in the system quick menu, which is brought up by holding down the PlayStation button in the middle of your controller, so you can easily adjust the delay without ever leaving your current game or app.

Dims the handlebar light bar

One of the innovative and unique features of the DualShock 4 is the front “light bar”, which changes color in certain games and allows the PlayStation Camera to follow the controller to record players and PlayStation VR gameplay. While it’s impossible to turn the light off completely, you can dim it considerably from the quick menu. choose sound devices and DualShock 4 Light Bar Brightness and you will see three different settings: bright, medium and dim. By default, the light is set to bright, but you can change it to dim.

We didn’t have any issues with the camera sensing dim light, so there’s no reason not to save a little power and keep the controller running longer.

Reduce the volume of the controller speaker, turn off the vibration

In addition to the noise coming from your TV or audio system, the DualShock 4 itself is equipped with a speaker, which certain games use for game cues, new sound effects, and other diegetic twists. IN destiny 2for example, your controller will make a noise regularly during combat, alerting you faster than the standard game sound.

The speakerphone, while fun, is much louder than it should be. Just go to the quick menu and select Devices as you did when adjusting the light bar, and you will see the option highlighted Volume control (controller speaker). Select that and you can turn the volume down to make it much quieter and more battery efficient.

If you want to remove all controller feedback, go to the Devices menu in PlayStation 4 settings, after which follows controllers option. Here you can turn off all vibrations. It’s an extreme step – most games use some sort of vibration as a cue to play – but if your controller’s battery is having trouble charging, it might help you keep going.

Keep a spare driver in your bullpen

PlayStation 4 PS4 20th Anniversary Controller Top

Eventually, you’ll find yourself engrossed in an online shooter or RPG, and your controller’s battery life will begin to drain. You can take a break and let it charge before resuming your game, or connect it to your console with a micro USB cable, but neither solution is ideal. Instead, leave the extra controller on standby!

If you bought a second controller for your PlayStation 4, simply connect it to your console with the included cable and let it charge while you use the second controller. If you put the console to sleep instead of shutting it down completely, wake it up again. Power saving settings menu mentioned above and select Set the functions available in sleep mode. There you will find an option to power the USB ports, allowing the controller to continue charging.

If leaving your PS4 on standby all the time isn’t for you, there are also several third-party charging docks that offer a convenient place to store extra controllers. The PowerA charging stand, for example, costs between $25 and $30 and allows you to charge two controllers simultaneously without connecting to your PS4.

When the controller is charging, the indicator light on the top of the controller will flash orange. When the light turns off completely, you know the charge is complete. It’s good to always have a charger on the stand. That way, you’ll always have a DualShock 4 controller ready to go.

If you have doubts, complete it

PlayStation 4 bundleJulian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

Even if your DualShock controller still has bars on the indicator, it’s a good idea to fully charge it when not in use. You’ve probably heard that “battery memory” is a problem when you overcharge your devices. Fortunately, battery memory is a thing of the past.

The lithium ion batteries you can find today generally do not have battery memory limitations. You don’t have to worry about running out of battery or overcharging. Controllers like the DualShock 4 use this special type of battery, so you can charge it up anytime, as much as you want, without worrying about draining battery life.

With today’s gaming technology, you have good reason to test your battery’s full capacity from time to time. However, you can really test its life by calibrating the battery life indicator. It is best to discharge the battery every 30 charges to get an accurate indication of battery life. This may seem counterintuitive, but frequently draining the battery to full capacity helps combat problems like “digital memory” in the long run.

Digital memory specifically forces your device to send false reports about battery capacity. If this starts to happen, you can recalibrate the controller to try to fix it. If it’s not checked, it might be hard to know exactly when or if you need to load your driver after a while.

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Categories: GAMING
Source: newstars.edu.vn

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