Home Gaming New battery tech offers a minute of charging for eight hours of play

New battery tech offers a minute of charging for eight hours of play

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Austin

The greatest advancement in video game technology isn’t an expanded online presence, digital downloads or streaming your inane comments to the detriment of tens of viewers. It’s wireless controllers. Rewind back to when you were a kid, and you had to deal with the tangled jungle of cords that would devour your hands when you were fishing for PS2 controllers out of a box.

The misery of having to perch yourself close enough to a TV that your retinas would burn because of length issues (heh). Those moments when a controller would sit awkwardly in your hands because the cord tangled like an anaconda snake during a feeding frenzy around your hands. Man, the past was crap.

And then we had the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 generation, which took established technology and pushed it further into the mainstream. The idea of sitting on a couch and not having to worry about the cold, sticky embrace of a cord going rogue on your thighs was something to look forward to. The only real challenge facing such controllers these days however, is power consumption.

The PlayStation 4 Dual Shock controller is a thirsty fella that slurps away your battery power within a handful of hours, while the Xbox One controller uses standard AA batteries. They’re not exactly crippling problems, but they are present and annoying at the worst possible time, as anyone whose battery has suddenly run dry can testify to. But for one controller at least, salvation may be at hand.

That’s according to some technology which borders on sorcery, revealed over at CES 2016 last week. Able to provide up to eight hours of play, the real magic comes from the fact that a controller can be charged up to maximum within 60 seconds for another eight hours of action.

“We’ve developed a technology to charge your controller in a new way, it’s not using a battery pack,” director of product development at PDP Christopher Dingle said to Polygon about the Xbox One controller battery that had been developed.

In the past it has been about either your dry cell battery chemistries or your lithium ion or lithium polymers, but we’ve developed a new type of power pack.

Don’t start clicking around just yet to order one of these batteries: They’ll only be released towards the end of 2016 and will cost you around $99 for a battery and charging base. And presumably a book of necromancy disguised as a user manual, because sorcery dammit.

Last Updated: January 11, 2016

No Comments

  1. Reply

    • RinceThis

      January 11, 2016 at 14:56

      You done something with your hair Trev? *run

      Reply

      • Captain JJ 4x

        January 11, 2016 at 15:06

        Looks like he trimmed it.

        Reply

  2. Kromas untamed

    January 11, 2016 at 14:12

    I tried to plug my Necronomicon into my battery bank the other day. All I got for it was a rather large amount of pop up adds and e-mail spam.

    Reply

  3. Hammersteyn

    January 11, 2016 at 14:17

  4. Hammersteyn

    January 11, 2016 at 14:19

    Should have been 30 seconds charge time, 1/10 – Polygon

    Reply

  5. Captain JJ 4x

    January 11, 2016 at 14:26

    I honestly don’t recall ever struggling with controller cables.
    I just remember having a lot of fun and that they controllers were unbreakable.

    Reply

  6. Captain JJ 4x

    January 11, 2016 at 14:27

    One minute charge to play the entire Order.

    Reply

    • RinceThis

      January 11, 2016 at 14:55

      twice you mean?

      Reply

      • Captain JJ 4x

        January 11, 2016 at 15:05

        😀

        Reply

  7. schitsophrenic-toothbrush

    January 11, 2016 at 14:34

    Xbone controllers still use AA batteries? who would’ve thunk

    Reply

    • Pieter Kruger

      January 11, 2016 at 15:09

      Best idea ever! Anything beats the 2 hour lifespan of a fully charged Sony controller. That’s why most PS4 users are always sitting so close to the tv……….the controller cord!????

      Reply

  8. Ghost In The Rift

    January 11, 2016 at 14:38

    Yeah i got my rechargeable batteries, when the current 2 is empty i use the spares and charge up the empty ones, works for me and it costs me about 150 bucks, two hundred and twenty and one something SA rands*runs*

    Reply

    • RinceThis

      January 11, 2016 at 14:56

      lol

      Reply

    • Captain JJ 4x

      January 11, 2016 at 15:05

      Yea. I do the same with mine.
      Nice and easy.

      Reply

  9. Original Heretic

    January 11, 2016 at 14:50

    This is amazing!

    Reply

  10. Ryanza

    January 11, 2016 at 15:06

  11. Milesh Bhana

    January 11, 2016 at 15:07

    My NES-clone (i think it was called a Tadashi?, definitely wasn’t Golden China… ) was wireless almost 30 years ago!

    Player 1 controller was wireless and had a switch to make it the player 2 controller. Player 2 controller was wired, but my douche of a brother would hit the player 2 switch on that controller and make me die.

    He’d never let me use that controller, so i just kept switching the batteries for dead ones.

    What was my point?

    Right, wireless controllers have been around for a very long time actually.

    Reply

    • konfab

      January 12, 2016 at 10:13

      Battery tech hasn’t.

      That is why they only really started taking off with smartphones and their high capacity Li-Ion batteries.

      Reply

  12. konfab

    January 12, 2016 at 10:12

    I want that for my cellphone.

    ;__;

    Reply

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