All of the Lights: Many curious uses for the PS4 light bar

Sony is no stranger to idiosyncratic hardware design. Nintendo and Sega put analog sticks on their controllers in the '90s? Sony adds on an extra stick and redefines console controllers. Touch screens are de rigueur? Sony slaps a touch surface on the front and back of PS Vita. The PlayStation 4 is a sleek piece of modern consumer tech design, but even it's got its quirks.

[ECHOBLAST]

A good battery sucker. 4hours of loading when dynamics light bar are activated in gta. Without it's 7h. Same for the speakers.

[mcstorm]

What I find funny about the battery life in the DS4 is not too many people went OTT with the battery life but when the WiiU came out everyone went way OTT about the battery life in it yet it dose more.

I hope Sony start using the light bar more in its games and also hope they can improve the battery life via software in it too.

[Volkama]

I don't want them to use the lightbar more. The lightbar bugs me.

I don't really care about the battery life, as it is long enough that I have never had it run out mid-session.

[plmkoh]

It's pretty simple why, it's because you can't charge the tablet straight from the console, it has a 3-5hr battery life, takes 2hrs+ to charge and you can't buy spares in retail.

The DS4 on the otherhand will play for 10hrs, can be charged with an out of box USB cable, tape a $10 powerbank to it and you have 50hr+ battery and spares are easily obtainable.

You make a good point that the Wii U tablet has more uses, but something so core to the console having such a short battery life is a different story to a simple controller with so many remedies.

[mcstorm]

@plmkoh You lost me there how do you get 10 hours out of your ds4? Also the wiiu controller comes with its own power adaptor so you can just use that to keep it charged when playing and what you mean tape a $10 power bank to it to give you 50 horus why would you do that?

As I said I just find it funny how people come up with well you can do X Y and Z like you have said but then still slate the WiiU controller that again dose a lot more than the DS3 and the Pro controller for the WiiU has a massive battery life too so you can just pick one of them up if people use the well I own 2 DS4 controllers.

[bouzebbal]

still waiting for a game with a move-like type of experience. i barely notice if there is light in it it's gimmick more than anything else. you cannot recognize the port number either on the ps4.

[Th4Freak]

Well, you probably don't own a PS4 or are really trying to get attention because no DS4 battery last 7 hours, hell i'd buy one right know that last that long.

Now, I myself removed the LED cord in the controlled and it doesn't make any difference in the battery life, the LED is way too small to have the capacity to draw that much power, the reason why it looks like that its because it has a magnifying plastic that makes the light looks that big.

It's very easy to open the DS4, I encourage anyone that thinks that the LED draws that many battery to unplug it, you will notice no difference at all, however if you're like me and hate it when playing in dark rooms you will leave it unpluged.

[Zancruz]

And? I never understood why people complain about the DS4's battery life.... I mean do people really play for 4+ Hours in one sitting? Play for a hour or two, Put the controller on the charger and take a damn break. Smh

[OB1Biker]

Agreed and now that I have 2 controllers theres 0 chance it bothers me

[SniperControl]

Wait till Tearaway Unfolded hits, it will show the true potential of the lightbar.

[caseh]

True potential? Like what, it's gonna perform magic tricks?

[SniperControl]

Youtube Tearaway unfolded

[caseh]

@sniperControl

Ahh ok, gotcha admittedly that's pretty clever. Shame the game looks like complete ass but that's just my opinion. :)

[dafegamer]

Your posts are completely ass.

[Bennibop]

I agree tearaway seems to be the first game to really put it to use, hopefully other developers will then follow suit.

OT My launch day pad battery life was/is shorter than my new pad by 1-2 hrs. Still think there is room for improvement though.

[Volkama]

I've never really looked into tearaway because I don't have a vita, but those videos make it look quite charming. I like Media Molecule.

Not sold on the controller gimmicks though. Shine a light on the TV? Even if you have a camera, the PS4 doesn't know where you are shining the light so it's going to be a gimmicky implementation.

[dafegamer]

Its a clever trick by media molecule, it isn't using the Playstation camera but instead it's relying on motion controls

[PrinceOfAllSaiyans]

I've never had a bad experience with the battery life. Maybe its because I don't sit in the house and play video games all damn day, because there are more dinner things I can do like shooting my guns at the gun range or fishing. Oh and school and work. Maybe don't play video games all day and you won't have that problem ?

[Hanuman]

I covered it with dark tape. I hate that thing. It reflects on my screen even with the dimmed setting on. I hope Sony will give users more options (An OFF setting would be nice!) soon.