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Sony’s PlayStation 4 is one of its more recent consoles for home gaming and entertainment, with the PS5 acting as its current successor and newest edition to the bunch. Although this PlayStation is the fourth offering from Sony’s home entertainment line, the company launched it as part of the eighth generation of gaming systems overall.
The PS4 saw its debut in 2013, where it competed against other brands in the industry. As with similar updates to their products, Sony chose to make some changes to the controllers and accessories that the PlayStation employs, all of which happened alongside upgrades to the system itself.
The DualShock is the main controller that most gamers who own a PS4 would probably use. It maintains many similarities to previous versions of itself, but it has shapes and angles for the main buttons that are different from the ones you will find on older DualShocks.
Some PlayStation 4 owners have questions about the controllers specifically. They wonder if any PS4 controllers come with a charge available in the battery already. We will address this question in today’s article, and we will also go over if you get your own charging cable with any PS4 DualShock controller that you buy. As we get deeper into cables and their uses, we can also check out whether it is possible to use any sort of micro USB standard cable to charge the controller for a PS4.
In the later sections, we’ll discuss battery life and charging in specific scenarios, such as charging the device while playing games. If you’re having trouble with battery life for your PS4 controller, we’ll try to offer some good troubleshooting tips that may work for you.
Table of Contents
Do PS4 Controllers Come Charged?
Typically, your PS4 controller should have at least some charge to it. This applies to new controllers that you purchase from Sony or retailers that sell PlayStation accessories. There may not be a guarantee that controllers you get from other sellers or markets will come with the batteries charged up already.
Furthermore, even the controllers that you might get from the manufacturer may not have a full charge to them. This is because some of the charge may dissipate during shipment. If the controller spends a long time on a shelf before you purchase it, you may find that the device has only a negligible charge left in its battery.
That said, you should still be able to test out your PS4 controller by playing for a little bit as soon as you open it up and pair it with the console.
When You Buy a PS4 Controller, Does It Come With a Charging Cable?
No, new PS4 controllers do not come with charging cables of their own. It is possible that you can find PS4 controllers on the secondary market that include cables as extras for you, but this is not standard practice for any that you find at retailers.
The PS4 DualShock controller does have a battery, and you will need a cable to charge it, but Sony opted not to include cables with their chargers when they manufactured and packaged them for sale at various stores.
Can You Use Any Micro USB Cable To Charge PS4 Controller?
Yes, you should be able to use any micro-USB form factor cable in order to charge up your PlayStation 4 controller. This flexibility is probably part of the reason that the company decided that it did not need to include dedicated charging cables for the PlayStation controllers themselves.
With any cable matching this form factor sharing compatibility with the charging port for the controller’s battery pack, Sony probably felt that most gamers would already have at least one cable that they could use.
Many devices today utilize this cable, and the likelihood that most gamers would have one cable for at least one other device may be quite high. For example, many kinds of tablets or smartphones will use this type of cable to send a charge. If you have at least one of these, you have a cable that you can use for your PS4 controller.
That said, there is a difference between a charging cable and one that also supports data transfer. Some cables do both things. You may need a cable that can perform both of these tasks if your goal is to sync with the PS4. You’ll need to sync a controller with the console before you use it for the first time.
Therefore, you may need to make sure that you have at least one cable that will do this, too. However, once you do, you can switch the usual charging cable that you would like to have for your PS4 controller to one that just does the charging that you need. Additionally, these cables tend to be cheaper than their data transfer counterparts.
Is It Okay To Charge Your PS4 Controller While Playing?
Yes, it should be fine to charge the controller for your PS4 while the console is in use. In fact, it is possible that this is something that Sony wanted players to do. Some controllers from different brands had kits that manufacturers would call charge and play items.
While this could refer to charging the device and then playing a game, it also meant that players could charge things up while they also used them to play games at the same time. You can find this kind of feature on older controllers for other consoles, so the DualShock for the PS4 should be no exception.
Sony placed two ports on the original PS4 controller. Players can use either port to charge the device, and one of those ports is the micro USB format that we discussed earlier.
This one is an ideal choice for charging up your accessory while still using it to play a game on the home console. The only thing you need to keep in mind here is the amperage that you use to charge the controller.
Of course, bigger amperages will allow you to charge the device at faster rates. If you want to play with the controller and still charge it, meaning you want to increase the battery charge even though you are using it, you’ll need good amperage ratings for that. Otherwise, you may not be able to charge the battery faster than it discharges from your use of it.
Why Does My PS4 Controller Run Out of Battery So Fast?
Some players may notice that their DualShock controllers seem to die quickly. Even if they indicate that they have a full charge, it is possible that some controllers will last only a couple of hours before running out of energy completely.
In more dire cases, you might see a controller that doesn’t even last a full hour before it seems to no longer hold any charge. There could be a few reasons for this phenomenon, and we will go through some of the most likely scenarios here.
One problem relates to fast chargers. As the name suggests, fast chargers are something that manufacturers put out as a way to give energy to battery-powered devices even more quickly than conventional chargers might. For the most part, these devices can work just fine for much of the technology you might come across.
However, the design of the PS4 DualShock means that it is not conducive to fast charging. In fact, this kind of game controller seems to be somewhat at odds with the technology that developers use for fast charging.
Instead of giving the battery in the controller the energy it needs, using a fast charger could result in destroying the battery’s ability to charge at all. This may not happen all at once, but it could be a problem for gamers who use a fast charger on their PS4 controllers multiple times.
If you have been using a controller you purchased recently, it may have a defect in the hardware that is affecting the life of the battery. In such cases, a new controller may be the only real solution. You can also test this by charging the device while you play games with it.
While the controller should be able to handle this with ease, check to see if the battery is getting warm. If it is, this could indicate that there is some problem that is hurting the battery’s ability to maintain a charge. Even while you are playing, the battery should not get too hot from charging.
What Are Some Tips To Save PS4 Controller Battery Life?
Here are a few tips that might have your PS4 controller some energy for when it needs it most:
- If you use the console for things other than gaming, set the controller’s time to shut down to as soon as possible.
- You cannot turn off the controller’s light bar. However, you can dim it to save energy.
- The controller can produce audio and vibrate at certain points. Reducing the frequency of both of these can help save battery life.
Conclusion
The DualShock controller for the PS4 is an innovative design that has many useful or fun features for gamers. Most of the controllers you find from official vendors should have some battery life in them already at purchase, and you can use a very common cable to top off that charge. Furthermore, if you find that you need ways to conserve or extend battery life on a controller that seems to use it a lot, you can try some of our tips above.
