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Dualshock 4: LED's effect on battery life test

Fredrik

Member
The last time I found a controller design decision as annoying as the light bar was when my VMU started beeping every time its batteries died. That led (lolololol) me to do some surgery and cut the wire to the speaker, and I'll do the same with my DS4 to disable the LEDs if we don't get an option to turn it off within a few months.
Lol yep that WAS annoying. I loved the VMU and the cool use in some games, like PowerStone for example which had a shooter running on the VMU, but the battery life was just horrible and the batteries were quite expensive too.
Anyhow, I wonder if simply removing the LED would work? Or maybe replace it with a diode to keep the circuit active?
 

xn0

Member
Can't see it in that pic, would it be as simple to remove the LED from the circuit board and keep the microUSB connection? (for someone with enough soldering experience)

You can't see what in that pic? The ribbon cable simply pulls out of the cable harness all of which are circled with a big red circle in that picture.... :?

To answer your second question no. The LED is wave soldered to the board. If you remove it its likely to break and even if it didn't break getting it reattached would be extremely difficult even with a focused heat gun and a lot of luck.
 

Fredrik

Member
You can't see what in that pic? The ribbon cable simply pulls out of the cable harness all of which are circled with a big red circle in that picture.... :?

To answer your second question no. The LED is wave soldered to the board. If you remove it its likely to break and even if it didn't break getting it reattached would be extremely difficult even with a focused heat gun and a lot of luck.
I just meant that I can't see how the LED is connected to the circuit, what components are involved etc. As you said, unplugging the whole microUSB circuit is not ideal, I'm thinking about what to do to disable the LED circuit and still have the battery easily rechargable. Maybe if we remove some other component just to break the circuit, something that's easier the replace after testing?
 

Kibbles

Member
Why the fuck do we have to screw with the insides, why does Sony insist on not letting us just toggle the light off?
 

Fredrik

Member
Why the fuck do we have to screw with the insides, why does Sony insist on not letting us just toggle the light off?
I think they might allow us to do that soon because of modding threads like this and threads about how annoying the LED is. I think I read somewhere that the LED couldn't be turned off completely though but that it could be almost off, so maybe that's the solution, adding a power saving option that lower the brightness.
 

|ync

Member
From a 1000 mAh battery and 6 hour battery life you can calculate an average current draw of
Code:
1000 mAh / 6 h = 166.7 mA

Given the measurement of 0.08 A with led vs 0.03-0.04 A without led we get the power draw of the led
Code:
0.08 A - 0.035 A = 0.045 A = 45 mA
(The fact that you reported the values in A with two decimal places suggests that maybe you had the multimeter on A scale rather than mA scale. You get more accurate measurements if you select the right scale for the signal your are measuring)

Subtracting the led current from the total current gives the current drawn by the rest of the controller
Code:
166.7 mA - 45 mA = 121.7 mA

Finally, you can calculate the expected battery life without the led
Code:
1000 mAh / 121.7 mA = 8.2 h

And so theoretically you could get an extra two hours or so by disabling the led. Have you had a chance to actually play with your led disabled controller and see how long it lasts under normal use?
 

Gen X

Trust no one. Eat steaks.
I expect much like the DS3 'rumble is last gen' backpedal that either Sony will release a DS4 with an option to turn the LED off completely, or sell an alternative model with no LED. Having a DS4 with no LED would benefit Sony with lower manufacturing costs.
 
I never game for more than a couple hours at a time so I don't have an issue with battery life, especially since the console charges in stand by mode. Dont think enough ppl will care to turn this into a twitter campaign.
 

ph00p

Banned
I expect much like the DS3 'rumble is last gen' backpedal that either Sony will release a DS4 with an option to turn the LED off completely, or sell an alternative model with no LED. Having a DS4 with no LED would benefit Sony with lower manufacturing costs.

But not consumer cost don't worry about that one, Sony will keep it's full MSRP.
 

Fredrik

Member
After having the console for 2 weeks now I'm really annoyed at the leds. What's the point? Some game use it for showing health, green and red, etc, but I can't even see the light unless I'm holding a finger in front of the leds since they're pointed away from me. Most meaningless thing ever as a standard feature on a controller, and it drains the battery.
Sony, please have it automatically deactivated until I plug in a camera!
 

Keihart

Member
Rumbling and ligth, give me all of it.
I can sit and play almost 8 hours if it's fully charged, unless theres way too much rumble. So it's OK with me.

Also give me hybrid aiming using the sixaxis and the light bar plus the analogs, it would be like on Vita but way better, prolly the ultimate control aiming if they nail it.

EDIT: Also, probably the LED it's the less consuming feature between that and the rumble and the speaker.
 

xn0

Member
I apologize in advance for the necropost but I wanted to update this thread:

https://twitter.com/yosp/statuses/423218552548503553
ZHhxbX4.png


According to @yosp we are going to have to live with the DS4 LED. Even with multiple tests showing the LED uses twice as much power with it on, on an idle controller:

With LED on .08A (stable)
With LED off . 03A to .04A (variable)

The DS4 has a 1000mAh Li-ion battery therefore the idle battery life would be calculated as:

LED enabled: (1000/80) = 12.5 hours
LED disabled: (1000/35) to (1000/30) = 28.6 hours


Completely disabling the LED is a difficult task and like others I've just kept electrical tape over my LED as I find it distracting and breaks immersion on top of the reduced battery life. Its a shame we can't simply have a PS4 OS choice given PS4 developers and @yosp said that developers can turn it off if they choose.
 

RaikuHebi

Banned
I remember this thread. An absolute farce that they can't just add the option. If it's about controller recognition then just make it so the LED reactivated when USB is plugged in.
 
I apologize in advance for the necropost but I wanted to update this thread:

https://twitter.com/yosp/statuses/423218552548503553
ZHhxbX4.png


According to @yosp we are going to have to live with the DS4 LED. Even with multiple tests showing the LED uses twice as much power with it on, on an idle controller:

With LED on .08A (stable)
With LED off . 03A to .04A (variable)

The DS4 has a 1000mAh Li-ion battery therefore the idle battery life would be calculated as:

LED enabled: (1000/80) = 12.5 hours
LED disabled: (1000/35) to (1000/30) = 28.6 hours


Completely disabling the LED is a difficult task and like others I've just kept electrical tape over my LED as I find it distracting and breaks immersion on top of the reduced battery life. Its a shame we can't simply have a PS4 OS choice given PS4 developers and @yosp said that developers can turn it off if they choose.

Idle doesn't really mean much. We need to know how much juice it uses when it's actively sending command input. Then we'll know if the LED is actually important or not with regard to battery life.
 
Idle doesn't really mean much. We need to know how much juice it uses when it's actively sending command input. Then we'll know if the LED is actually important or not with regard to battery life.

Also, knowing how much power the USB board draws might also help, considering that it's currently being added into the LED draw.

This was an interesting experiment, but the methodology used means that you can't actually draw any conclusions as to how much power the LED's use, nor extrapolate how much play-time you'd gain by turning them off.
 

xn0

Member
Idle doesn't really mean much. We need to know how much juice it uses when it's actively sending command input. Then we'll know if the LED is actually important or not with regard to battery life.

Also, knowing how much power the USB board draws might also help, considering that it's currently being added into the LED draw.

I completely agree with both of you. My main gripe with the LED is that it reflects off of my tv screen and when it flashes it makes me look down and breaks immersion for me. I know several people that feel the same way and we've resorted to covering the LED with electrical tape. The power usage/battery draw for what I believe is the biggest negative of the DS4 controller is just icing on the cake that I would hope would make the case for Sony to make the LED an OS configurable option so we don't have to go around modifying our controllers.
 

BakaJaNai

Banned
Keep calling @yosp on this topic with math from this thread.

LED obviously reduces battery life of a controller a lot.
Add a meager 1000 mah batttery and you have a disaster. Least battery life controller in ages (for controller without 6.2" screen). And let's not even talk about WiiU Pro controller and 80 hours...

This and wrong orientantion of heatpipes for vertical position of PS4 are 2 main engineering fails from Sony so far.
 
The power usage/battery draw for what I believe is the biggest negative of the DS4 controller is just icing on the cake that I would hope would make the case for Sony to make the LED an OS configurable option so we don't have to go around modifying our controllers.

And this is the meat of the issue, some people actually seem to WANT the LED's to be a significant power drain, whether they actually are or not, because it adds weight to their personal preferences that they be turned off.

Don't take this to mean that I'm against it. In my opinion, your preference that it be configurable is enough to entertain the issue. It would have to be a software fix or a full on controller update though, and it's not high up on my list of "priority" software fixes. (not that I'm in control of prioritizing the update board)

People shouldn't need to claim that it'll double the controller life (or give them an extra hour, or any other arbitrary number they are 'hoping' for) Isn't it enough that you think it's annoying?

Eventually there will be either a software fix, or a third party cover, or some other workaround. Until then, there's tape.


Edit:
I will say that despite loving the DS4, the thumbstick issue and the fact that the lightbar can't be turned off/down are kind of dumb design decisions as far as I'm concerned.
 

superbank

The definition of front-butt.
Ask for a dimming option. If pin 14 has PWM (pulse width modulation) it can be dimmed. This will 1. Make the light less annoying (no tv reflection) 2. Save on battery life and 3. Keep in line with Sonys vision of a visible bar of light.
 
This is an interesting bit of information. Thanks to Xno for testing this. Luckily the battery is rechargeable. I do wonder if the next Gen of controllers
They don't change style, but I THINK they change chip sets or w/e (not technical guy here)
will last much longer.
 

ViciousDS

Banned
time to bump this thread hoping for xn0 and a few other gaffers to run new tests on the newer models and to see how much difference the 3 brightness setting affect the battery life
 
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