How to see your PS4 controller battery on PC

The DualShock 4 is still one of the most used controllers on PC: comfortable, cheap second-hand, recognised by almost every game. But Windows treats it like any other gamepad. There is no battery level in Settings, no warning, and the first sign of a flat battery is the controller disconnecting in the middle of a game.

Why Windows shows nothing

The DualShock 4 does not use the standard Bluetooth battery service that Windows knows how to read. It sends its charge inside its own input reports, alongside the stick and button data, in a format Sony defined for the PS4. Windows passes those reports to games without ever looking for a battery in them.

Over USB it is no different: for Windows, a wired DualShock 4 is an input device that happens to be charging, nothing more.

What the light bar tells you, and what it does not

On a PS4, the light bar shows your player color and the console shows the battery on screen. On a PC, unless a program changes it, the light bar keeps a fixed color that says nothing about the charge.

Some programs, DS4Windows among them, can make the light bar change color with the battery. It is a handy trick, but you have to look at the controller to read it, and a color only gives a rough idea.

The methods that work

Steam

Steam reads the DualShock 4 itself. With Steam running and the controller connected, the battery level appears next to the controller in Big Picture mode and in the controller settings. It is free, but the level only exists inside Steam and disappears when you close it.

DS4Windows

DS4Windows was written for the DualShock 4 in the first place, and its window shows the battery of each connected controller. The catch: it also turns the controller into a virtual Xbox controller, and its exclusive mode can hide the real one from other programs. See battery not showing with DS4Windows.

A taskbar utility

A utility that decodes the DualShock 4's reports keeps the level in view permanently, whatever you are playing and wherever you bought the game. BatteryOnPC does it passively: it only listens to what the controller already sends and never sends it a command, so it cannot make a game lose the controller.

How precise is the level?

The DualShock 4 reports its battery in about ten steps, so the level moves by roughly 10 % at a time. Every program that reads it gets the same steps, Steam and DS4Windows included: a controller shown at 85 % is somewhere in that step, not measured to the percent.

For PlayStation controllers, BatteryOnPC's low battery notification also gives an estimate of the play time left, which is often more useful than the percentage itself.

The V2 and the wireless adaptor

Both versions of the controller, the original DualShock 4 and the V2 with a light strip on top of the touchpad, report their battery the same way. Sony's DualShock 4 USB wireless adaptor passes the level through as well, so the controller does not need to be paired over Bluetooth to be read.

For the PS5 controller, see how to see your DualSense battery on PC. Every PlayStation controller and INZONE device BatteryOnPC reads is on the Sony page.