Does Dimming the PS4 Controller's Light Bar Increase Its Battery Life?

Dim is now my current, but it does say that when games require them it will turn back up which is super fine by me and having an extra hour and a bit battery life can only be good, right?

Dim but it don't really matter when I'm 6 feet away from a 50" plasma. That thing just lights up the room anyway.

Which basically disproves everyone who said that the lightbar significantly shortened the battery life.

That said, it apparently can be turned off by developers at the software level. So if they're not going to let you turn it off manually, why not patch the firmware to detect if you've got a camera connected, and if not, disable the light?

You know what is really sad? Mass amount of people. Almost everyone in today's world has something to complain about. "Oh my playstation doesn't play mp3's, oh my playstation controller light won't shut off, I can't broadcast videos to youtube so I'm gonna whine about it. Do us all a favor and shut up. Be grateful for what playstation has provided to you and stop acting like 13 year old drama queens. Eventually Sony will provided more and more patches to accommodate and satisfy your never ending demands but for the rest of the people who have heard enough of the crying shut up for the time being.

@BarrettJChris there can be legit 'complaints' or asking for more options but I agree in that there s a lot of spoiled children whining on the internet.

Hmm it might of lasted longer because now(YAWN, sorry to say) the Rumble is messed up :-/ + The only thing i feel like moaning about is can't SONY(& nearly all the other Companies) get it right & not give us broken updates 'most' of the time?!?!
Anyway the DS4 pad seemed to last longer this week for me(in DIM Mode. Not that i was bothered about the lights brightness in the 1st place really)

@N711 I agree there is a way to do it and most people don't want to do it the right way
@get2sammyb you are right you can't satisfy everyone. Everyone wants something more. It's like these people were spoiled as children and all they know is if they voice disappointment they will eventually get what they want.

@Carl-G my rumble is fine. What's yours doing?

I have my controller set to medium & have not had it die out on me yet, but that's also because I have gotten into the habit of charging my controllers whenever I'm done playing my ps4 now

I have my controller set to medium & have not had it die out on me yet, but that's also because I have gotten into the habit of charging my controllers whenever I'm done playing my ps4 now

I keep mine on dim now, had bought some sticker originally to go over the light bar, but found that annoying as the light would seep around the edges, and it didn't look clean. I recall Sony saying turning off the light bar would have no discernible affect on battery life - seems like it does to me, If I get an extra hour and 21 minutes on a controller that only lasted 11 hours originally that's a big jump. They should just add the ability to turn it off at this point, let us decide - probably get another 30 minutes with if off.

@LDXD yeah you are a perfect example of a waste of life.

@McSterls they did the test with rumble off to have it even but time would be dramatically shorter in normal order I would think

Mines on Dim, this test proves that I will get another 1hr+ out of it I'm happy only changed it for the extra life as the light never bothered me

@BarrettJChris
If no-one complains nothing gets done. You just get told what you want and except it as truth.

I have both controllers set on DIM. When playing Child of Light, one is blue and the other is red. The red controller hardly looks dim at all. Even the blue really only seems about 50% of the original setting. I was expecting a nice dim setting that would provide just enough light to see the colour, without being a flashlight. The dim setting is pretty poor at doing just that. My gaming environment is pretty dark, at night, and I have a plasma TV with a fairly reflective glass screen (it is a Panasonic ST-60, so there is a small amount of anti-reflective on it), so even dim reflects in the TV considerably.

It is a start, but Sony doesn't really know what dim means.

I have it at dim as their nothing using the controller light yet

Dunno if its just me, but I've grown quite fond of the light and have decided to leave it on Max. After playing Fez, I was just blown away by how much it adds to the experience when it follows the colour changes of the sky. On dim, it doesn't have the say oomph if you will.

@BarrettJChris If nobody would've complained, we'd have always-online, DRM-infested consoles now. MS only caved in because of user backlash...and Sony rode the wave of the crapstorm MS' original plans evoked. Sony also has a patent for connecting disk-based games to a user profile and I'm not sure they would not have gone the same way as MS if the backlash hasn't been so severe.

I agree that the whining tone and the "I WANTS IT NAOWE!1" tone can get on ones nerves, but in general, user feedback is a good thing, because it keeps companies sharp and on their edge.

Besides, the light bar is an issue for me, as it is clearly visible on the screen of my HDTV when I play in the dark. Others may not have the problem, but there's roughly a gazillion different TVs out there, with different screens and reflectiveness, so the dimming option is appreciated, and I'll take over an hour more of battery life any time.

And about the no-mp3-thingy? Again, the tone may be immature, but I too can not understand why a feature that was implemented in the PS3 isn't available on PS4, same goes for video files. When I had a PS3 around, the ability to copy music and videos onto the PS3s HDD and watch the videos on the big screen was highly appreciated and used by me.

Oh...and complaining about improper tone an immaturity on the web and then personally insulting somebody and with him dead? Yeah, right...

Luckily, people with your attitude and vulgarity are a minority in the Pushsquare community. Maybe go somewhere else, plz?

BTT: I have my DS4 on the lowest setting. Glare is better, but still visible, but I'm not too bothered.

Fully dim for a good hour of extra battery life. Whatever. I've got mine fully dimmed, but I keep two controllers on the docking station so if one dies, I charge it and grab the other. That's how you gotta do it...

Not surprised by the results at all. LEDs do not consume much power. Still I have set mine to the dimmest. I don't have the camera yet, so why waste battery on something not being used.

I have personally never found the DS4s glare or reflection distracting.

i wasnt going to change it anyways

i wasnt going to change it anyways

i keep mine at max because i don't sit 1 foot away from the tv with the controller upto my face to find any fault with it at all like the whiners who nitpick at everything different from the norm.

Thanks for the article. I was hoping for someone to run a test. Seeing that it does save battery life, I wish they would just provide the option to turn the light off completely, since they already went through the trouble of patching in light settings. I suspect they don't want to admit that it was a silly idea. If they simply included "off" while they were already patching in new settings, that's what mine would be set to, because I'll take every hour of battery life I can get. In the grand scheme of things it doesn't "bother" me, but the light serves zero purpose 99% of the time. The default should be off with the option to turn it on if you want to see your torch flicker gimmick in Tomb Raider.

@get2sammyb look would u just do me a favor and just delete my account. You always have something to say about anything I write. You seriously act like some uptight preacher boy he finds the slightest words unbearable. I gotta say you are worse than my grandmother who finds flatulation discusting. Oh another thing I gotta tell you. You are over using your power. Mr forum moderator. I got news for you buddy you are not as powerful as you think you are. You think you can threaten me with "one more time" I don't care what you do. Go ahead delete my account, ban my account, I don't care. For the people who live in the real world and who work for a living and have actual friends your just a blonde haired panzy boy. Go find a real woman

I still keep mine on max. As often as I take breaks to go do other things, being able to quickly spot the bright blue glow quickly has cut down on my time finding misplaced controllers. It's a band-aid to a different issue, but I still like it a lot. I'd even opt to make it even brighter since I sit so far from my tv and rarely see the glow reflecting on my walls.

I dont even think my DS4 lasts 11 hours on one charge, gotta check again though since the PS4 is packed up.

It's good to know that it does bump the battery life up slightly though, hopefully Sony will drop the stubbornness and just let us turn it off.

@Paranoimia Yeah I was an original complainer about the battery life for the light bar. Someone brought up the obvious LED inside that would consume very little battery life, which totally made sense once I realized. The remote has the touch screen which I bet is the main battery drain.