- A Redditor said they “almost started a fire” with the Steam Controller’s charging puck
- This happened when their metallic smartwatch strap made contact with the puck’s exposed pins
- It caused a short circuit and “started sizzling” — although Valve does warn about this in the manual
A Redditor warns that they “almost started a fire” with the charger for the Steam Controller when it made contact with their metallic smartwatch strap.
This happened when charging the smartwatch close to the puck, with the watch strap accidentally touching the Steam Controller’s charging puck at the “exact wrong angle”.
The Redditor explains: “So my smartwatch’s metallic strap accidentally touched the Puck’s exposed contacts and started sizzling due to a short circuit.”
They also added that they consider this to be their own fault, and as several of the other Redditors posting on the thread point out, Valve does warn about this in the manual for the Steam Controller.
There’s a section in the health and safety booklet which warns that the charging puck contains a magnet, and that: “Magnetic parts may attract metallic items. To reduce the potential risk of sparks and resulting property damage or possible injury, make sure that the wireless adapter and charging puck and Controller are free of metallic objects before connecting.”
Analysis: reading manuals is fundamental
The trouble with manuals, of course, is: who reads them? Many don’t — it’s just human nature not to bother — but this is quite an important nugget of information to skip over.
Even if you do read it, there is the possibility that other people in your house — or visitors, even — will not be at all aware of this potential issue, and could put something metallic down next to the charging puck without realizing what might happen.
Which begs the question: should Valve have designed the charging puck better? That point is raised in the Reddit thread, and the original poster observes that Valve’s hardware isn’t the only device that has this issue. They note that the Xbox Elite Series 2 controller has a similar exposed pin design, but that the charging dock has a raised ridge around the pins that makes it harder for accidental direct contact to happen.
Valve could have made a similar move, then, or, as others suggest, used some sort of a ‘handshake’ to make sure the controller is the attached device before sending power over from the puck.
We’ve asked Valve for a comment on this issue and will update this article if we hear back from the company.
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