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Any way to improve dualsense battery life?


Milktastrophe

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For about the past month, my launch dualsense has had abysmal battery life. I timed it today:

 

+0 - full charge 

+1 hour - down to 2 bars

+20 minutes (1:20 total) - down to 1 bar

+25 minutes (1:45 total) - down to 0 bars / low battery notification

+50 minutes (2:35 total) - dead

 

I have the mic turned off, the light on dim, and rumble and triggers on strong/default (but the game I'm playing doesn't use rumble and is a PS4 game so no pressure triggers so I'm assuming won't make a difference). Normally I charge with the official charging station (these timings are with that), but have also tried charging with USB and didn't notice a difference.

 

Has anyone else had awful battery life and been able to do anything about it?

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24 minutes ago, Milktastrophe said:

 

Has anyone else had awful battery life and been able to do anything about it?

Probably the only solution is to replace battery with a third party one. Something like this 

https://www.amazon.com/Replacement-PlayStation-DualSense-CFI-ZCT1W-Controller-5/dp/B09GKB6L18

https://www.amazon.com/Replacement-Playstation-Dualsense-Controller-LIP1708/dp/B0B554VDSZ?th=1

Never used one personally, but I am used to dissasembly of my controllers and removing battery is the easiest part. Official one has capacity of 1500 mAh. Here is how to do it.

Edited by Akrioz
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59 minutes ago, Milktastrophe said:

For about the past month, my launch dualsense has had abysmal battery life. I timed it today:

 

+0 - full charge 

+1 hour - down to 2 bars

+20 minutes (1:20 total) - down to 1 bar

+25 minutes (1:45 total) - down to 0 bars / low battery notification

+50 minutes (2:35 total) - dead

 

sounds like u need to buy a new controller 

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Batteries are essentially consumable, so if you've run it through a thousand or a couple full charge cycles, it could be that the controller's kind of just come to the end of its road. Although normally you'd see maybe a 30% drop in the maximum charge on a 2 year old controller, I suppose this kind of performance could be possible. All down to chemistry and physics and stuff.

 

What I'd do at that point would be to just buy another controller and have it as a backup on the charging dock and swap between the two, or just kind of retire the old one. The other option I suppose would be to replace the battery as suggested above. Bit of effort due to the sealed design of the controller but doable with the right tools.

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keep it plugged in. 

 

I have 7 dualsense. Anytime one starts to have issues i just go get it swapped at the store.

 

But yeah i have one that lasts 4-5hrs but everything is set to low. It's also a launch controller. I normally use a controller until its completely fucked before i consider using another controller. So ive used this one almost 100% of the time i game.

 

Also depends how high your rumble is and the games you play. Some are more demanding of features than others. You can't expect to have everything on high, mic on etc, and get 10hrs if you're playing Astro.

 

Long story short: buy more controllers or keep it plugged in.

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I've used my first DualSense for about 1100 hours. It was purchased a year ago. I get up to about eight hours of battery, but it depends on the game.  If a game uses haptic feedback a lot, the battery drains faster. I also found that muting the microphone made a noticeable difference (this can be done in the options so you don't have to press the mute button every time). 

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1 hour ago, Infected Elite said:

I have 7 dualsense. Anytime one starts to have issues i just go get it swapped at the store.


This is the way, 7 might be a bit extreme but grabbing at least 1-2 spares on sales and juggling them back and forth with warranty as needed is the best solution imo, most big retailers just swap them out no questions asked.

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If the battery is already exhibiting really short life, try to replace it if it’s under warranty because there isn’t much you can do now. The best thing anyone can do is standard rechargeable battery prevention:

 

Don’t charge to 100% less you’re going to use it right away. When not in use, the battery should ideally be around 50%, no more than 80% charged. 

Don't deplete the battery completely, ever. Recharge once the battery gets down to 10%.

No extreme temperatures, hot or cold. 
 


Not following any of the above will drastically reduce the number of charge cycles in a rechargeable battery. 
 

 

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The Dualsense already has terrible battery life (the fact that people actually think 8-10 hours is good battery life is baffling to me), but yours is showing rapid discharge which means it's just worn down at this point...which happens because of how often the Dualsense needs to be charged in the first place. At this point you're not going to get much life out of it...you could either buy a replacement battery or a new controller. Battery is cheaper, but a new controller always has that new controller feel. 

 

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4 hours ago, Viper said:

The Dualsense already has terrible battery life (the fact that people actually think 8-10 hours is good battery life is baffling to me), but yours is showing rapid discharge which means it's just worn down at this point...which happens because of how often the Dualsense needs to be charged in the first place. At this point you're not going to get much life out of it...you could either buy a replacement battery or a new controller. Battery is cheaper, but a new controller always has that new controller feel. 

 

 

I've never experienced a wireless controller last longer than 6 hours under full gameplay. 8-10 sounds great to me.

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2 minutes ago, TJ_Solo said:

 

I've never experienced a wireless controller last longer than 6 hours under full gameplay. 8-10 sounds great to me.

it's not great in the grand scheme of things. It should last for DAYS on a single charge and constant gameplay, not a few hours. The issue is that Sony packs all these great features into it, but doesn't put in a battery that's worthy of handling it. They try and sell people on the fact that it's a slightly bigger battery than the DS4 (DS4 is 1000mAh, while the DualSense is 1560mAh), the problem here is that, yeah that extra 560mA does make it bigger, but it's not actually doing anything for total discharge time when you have all these features that are going to wear it down at the same rate as your previous controller. 

These batteries are one of the most inexpensive parts of the controller, it costs them pennies to put in. They could have easily put AT LEAST a 3000mAh battery in here (what your average Smartphone has). It wouldn't give it days, but you could probably at least get a whole day without having to charge it, which is better than what it currently is. But frankly they're banking on the people like the OP, who's controller is discharging so fast that your average person is just going to drop the $70 on another one. 

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15 hours ago, TJ_Solo said:

I've never experienced a wireless controller last longer than 6 hours under full gameplay. 8-10 sounds great to me.


The official Nintendo Pro Controller for the Switch gives me 30-40 hours of gameplay on a charge, depending on how much a game uses the rumble feature. But it doesn’t have advanced features like haptic feedback, speakers, mic, LEDs, audio jack, etc. It’s the only wireless controller I’ve used that has such long battery life.

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Easiest fix for this would be to buy a new controller (if you're able to) preferably one of the coloured ones that are up to date and compare the battery life, another way would be to replace the battery in the controller with one double the size, probably not as easy if you've never opened up the controller but those are the 2 ways i recommend.

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I too only get about 4-6 hours with haptic/rumble on low, light dimmed and mic muted. I have four ps5 controllers two launch whites and two of the first colors they launched. 

 

PS4 controllers lasted twice as long and PS3 at least 3x as long. Sadness, but that's why I own four now and the charging station. So if the wife and I are gaming we can easily switch controllers from the dock.

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17 hours ago, Viper said:

it's not great in the grand scheme of things. It should last for DAYS on a single charge and constant gameplay, not a few hours. The issue is that Sony packs all these great features into it, but doesn't put in a battery that's worthy of handling it. They try and sell people on the fact that it's a slightly bigger battery than the DS4 (DS4 is 1000mAh, while the DualSense is 1560mAh), the problem here is that, yeah that extra 560mA does make it bigger, but it's not actually doing anything for total discharge time when you have all these features that are going to wear it down at the same rate as your previous controller. 

These batteries are one of the most inexpensive parts of the controller, it costs them pennies to put in. They could have easily put AT LEAST a 3000mAh battery in here (what your average Smartphone has). It wouldn't give it days, but you could probably at least get a whole day without having to charge it, which is better than what it currently is. But frankly they're banking on the people like the OP, who's controller is discharging so fast that your average person is just going to drop the $70 on another one. 

 

You lost me at should.

 

@mrmivo 
Yup I have a Switch and the Pro controller. I pick it and and play it without even thinking about charging it. It is great.

 

 

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2 hours ago, TJ_Solo said:

 

You lost me at should.

 

@mrmivo 
Yup I have a Switch and the Pro controller. I pick it and and play it without even thinking about charging it. It is great.

 

 

Of course I did. Switch Pro controller does what I just said the DualSense should do...but I lost you regardless. Good talk.

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I didn't even think about it before, but I also always plug in headphones which I've found can drain the battery faster as well. Right now I need to use headphones, so I guess another thing that might help some is to switch to wireless headphones. I've looked some at the Pulse 3D headset, but a lot of people saying online that it hurts if you wear glasses. I think what I'll probably do is what most are suggesting, and try to get a new controller next time it's on sale.

 

On 12/27/2022 at 3:51 AM, DaivRules said:

If the battery is already exhibiting really short life, try to replace it if it’s under warranty because there isn’t much you can do now. The best thing anyone can do is standard rechargeable battery prevention:

 

Don’t charge to 100% less you’re going to use it right away. When not in use, the battery should ideally be around 50%, no more than 80% charged. 

Don't deplete the battery completely, ever. Recharge once the battery gets down to 10%.

No extreme temperatures, hot or cold. 
 


Not following any of the above will drastically reduce the number of charge cycles in a rechargeable battery. 
 

 

 

Does anybody babysit recharging their devices like that? I don't see it as possible for people that need to say, sleep or leave the house. If it should remain in a specific range, better to have a limiter within the device that prevents it from overcharging/draining. It would behoove Sony to keep their controllers viable longer to keep people playing longer and buying more games. Well, unless the margins are better on controllers I guess.

 

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or the few times I've used it which is really maybe 3 times? My launch controller will need a recharge pretty much every day. I screen share with the ps4 pro and use the ps5 screen so I've been using the DS4 instead for over a year. Confusing that Sony refuse to unlock ps4 controllers for ps5 games.

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