New PS4 Smell

Scott_Arm said:
Somebody open up their controller and rip out the LED for battery tests! Do it! ... For Science!
Click to expand...
There's a nice flat cable to disconnect the leds without damaging anything, and the controller still works. But it doesn't recharge anymore, because it's also contains the USB connector. When I reconnect the leds it charges again. Crap, it would have been so easy!

Shuhei !!! Let us disable the leds !!!! :LOL:
 
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MrFox said:
There's a nice flat cable to disconnect the leds without damaging anything, and the controller still works. But it doesn't recharge anymore, because it's also contains the USB connector. When I reconnect the leds it charges again. Crap, it would have been so easy!

Shuhei !!! Let us disable the leds !!!! :LOL:
Click to expand...

A very worthy attempt for the good of all Mankind.
 
Use a multimeter to figure out which pins of the ribbon contain power to the LEDs, snip it with a scalpel, and solder in a small switch...? :)
 
Success !! I masked the blue power with a piece of paper.

I think pin #1 is the led ground, pin #2 is the blue led, 3 and 4 are red and green. I'm not exactly sure, maybe it's in pairs, or whatever. Rightmost pins are definitely the USB.

Everything works, only red and green light up, it indicates charging and whatever effect in game that isn't blue will show up.

sjwn.jpg
 
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Cornsnake said:
That surprised me so I looked it up. Turns out there are indeed LEDs that consume a lot of power.

If it is the cause of the shorter battery life, then I find it strange that Sony would leave them on by default.
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It's a stupid design oversight, simple as that.
It's probably why the battery life is only 7-10 hours or so now (I can't think of any other culprits, it's not like they have new fancy rumble motors in the triggers like XB1).

Also annoying would be the light bleed when playing games in a dark room, would distract you from the screen.

You wouldn't imagine how much the single blinking LED on my portable HDD annoys me when it's hooked up to my PS3 while watching a movie (in the dark), even though it's just one tiny LED, it puts out a huge amount of light (bathes most of the wall to the right of the TV where my PS3 sits with faint blue light). Needless to say I covered it with tape.
 
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If they decided to unbundle the camera late, or if they want to observe the adoption rate of the camera first, they may not be ready to patch it out just yet. The light can be dimmed.

I assume at some point, they will optimize DS4 power usage. The default sound level for DS4 is like 95% for me. That's rather high.
 
MrFox said:
Success !! I masked the blue power with a piece of paper.

I think pin #1 is the led ground, pin #2 is the blue led, 3 and 4 are red and green. I'm not exactly sure, maybe it's in pairs, or whatever. Rightmost pins are definitely the USB.

Everything works, only red and green light up, it indicates charging and whatever effect in game that isn't blue will show up.

...
Click to expand...

Good job. If the battery results are good, I can see your hack spreading very quickly. My guess is battery life will improve. That looks like a pretty bright LED. Not sure what the limit is though. How much power does a touchpad draw? Can't see what else would prevent DS3-like battery life.
 
(((interference))) said:
It's a stupid design oversight, simple as that.
It's probably why the battery life is only 7-10 hours or so now (I can't think of any other culprits, it's not like they have new fancy rumble motors in the triggers like XB1).

Also annoying would be the light bleed when playing games in a dark room, would distract you from the screen.

You wouldn't imagine how much the single blinking LED on my portable HDD annoys me when it's hooked up to my PS3 while watching a movie (in the dark), even though it's just one tiny LED, it puts out a huge amount of light (bathes most of the wall to the right of the TV where my PS3 sits with faint blue light). Needless to say I covered it with tape.
Click to expand...
It's not a bad design oversight, it just wasn't the greatest decision to leave it on all the time.
 
Is there even firmware to update on the DS4?

Or does the PS4 control the light via the Bluetooth connection? Don't the games change the light on the controller and make it rumble?

So maybe PS4 firmware can be changed to keep the light off if there's no camera.

Though I did connect the DS4 to my iMac to charge it up and the light was on.
 
By design oversight I thought you meant that it was a poor design choice to have an LED on the back of the controller, period. I don't think it was a bad design choice, just a poor decision to have it on all the time. If that's what you meant, then never mind. :)
 
wco81 said:
Is there even firmware to update on the DS4?
Click to expand...
There's so much hardware in the DS4 that there basically has to be a microcontroller also to run everything, which would require firmware obviously (although I suppose the hardware could be designed to not be updateable, but that would be silly, in case there's some bad bugs in there or something.) Basically you got everything from a tablet but a display in there... But yes, the light has to be controllable from the console, so sony could at least turn it off when the camera isn't engaged. If there's a decent PWM LED controller in there, you could dim it too in dark environments (you'd have to use the camera to determine ambient light level, since there isn't a sensor on the DS4 to my knowledge.)
 
I'm sure we'll see an option to have the LED dim under certain circumstances in a later firmware. That said, when I'm watching BluRays now the controller won't be on anymore at all, as the TV remote can control my PS3 (and PS4) through HDMI-CEC.
 
Grall said:
But yes, the light has to be controllable from the console, so sony could at least turn it off when the camera isn't engaged.
Click to expand...
Absolutely, because the console can change it's colour. I'm very confident the PS4 could send a colour of (0,0,0) to the LED and disable it. Haven't we been told the light can be disabled by a game and flashed on for 'feedback'?
 
Arwin said:
That said, when I'm watching BluRays now the controller won't be on anymore at all, as the TV remote can control my PS3 (and PS4) through HDMI-CEC.
Click to expand...
I use sony's bluetooth remote instead, as I like not having to keep line of sight from the front of the remote to the TV. Makes fiddling with the buttons easier when I'm reclining in my chair. :) It does eat more batteries, but it's not so bad it gets excessive. I've only changed batteries a couple times since I bought the thing soon after PS3 first launched. An updated remote with low-power BT 4.0 support would be even better, then regular AA batteries should last many years.
 
Ah, but Smart TVs are way ahead of you. You can remote control them over WiFi using your phone, tablet. etc. ;) I can switch on the TV for my son from another floor, still in bed (and turn it off as well ;) ). To be honest I haven't tested yet though if that then also works again for controlling the PS3, will do that tonight.
 
I gotta say that I really like the PDM. It's a nice evolution of the XMB which I already loved. Simple, clean and fast. Everything just makes sense. I also noticed that it's a bit snappier with the latest 1.51 update. More functionality will come with time and it will just get better, too.
 
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