- One Redditor said they “almost started a fire” with the Steam Controller’s loading disk
- This happened when the metal strap of his smartwatch made contact with the exposed pins on the drive.
- It caused a short circuit and “started to sputter”, although Valve warns about this in the manual.
One Redditor warns that they “almost started a fire” with the Steam Controller charger when it made contact with the metal strap of their smartwatch.
This happened when charging the smartwatch near the puck, and the watch band accidentally touched the Steam Controller’s charging puck at the “exactly wrong angle.”
The Redditor explains: “Then the metal strap of my smartwatch accidentally touched the exposed contacts of the Puck and started sizzling due to a short circuit.”
They also added that they consider this to be their fault, and as several of the other Redditors posting in the thread point out, Valve warns about this in the Steam Controller manual.
There is a section in the health and safety brochure that warns that the charging puck contains a magnet and that: “Magnetic parts may attract metal items. To reduce the potential risk of sparks and resulting property damage or possible injury, make sure the wireless adapter, charging puck, and controller are free of metal objects before connecting them.”
Analysis: reading manuals is essential
The problem with manuals, of course, is: who reads them? Many don’t (it’s just human nature not to bother), but this is pretty important information to leave out.
Even if you read it, there is a chance that other people in your home, or even visitors, may not be aware of this potential problem and may place something metal next to the loading disc without realizing what could happen.
Which begs the question: Should Valve have designed the loading disc better? That point is raised in the Reddit thread, and the original poster notes that Valve’s hardware isn’t the only device that has this problem. 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 difficult for accidental direct contact to occur.
Valve could have made a similar move then or, as others suggest, used some sort of “handshake” to make sure the controller is the connected device before sending power from the disk.
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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