GoKawiilIt has been less than a month since the Steam Controller launch, and the device has already nearly caused a fire for at least one person. Redditor Toikka on the Steamcontroller subreddit revealed a nearly catastrophic incident involving their Steam Controller’s magnetic puck charger arcing electricity after attaching itself to foreign metallic material.
This unfortunate circumstance occurred when the Steam Controller owner was charging their Pixel Watch 3 in close proximity to their Steam Controller charging puck. The puck's magnetic attraction was strong enough for the Pixel Watch’s wristband to contact the puck's pogo pins, causing the device to short-circuit and heat up. Luckily, the owner managed to remove the wristband from the puck before any real damage occurred. The damage was purely cosmetic, consisting of dark spots on the Steam Controller puck and burn marks on the Pixel Watch wristband.
The event exposed a design oversight in the Steam Controller’s charging puck. The exposed pogo pins will conduct electricity to any metal surface that makes contact with them. Many of the responses in the aforementioned Reddit post highlight this oversight, with several comments recommending that Valve add a data pin to the charger to ensure it knows it is connected to a Steam Controller rather than some random object.
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Thankfully, Valve responded to Toikka and is reportedly investigating the charging incident. Valve may release a revised charging puck in the future that addresses this issue, but we’ll have to wait and see.
For now, this story serves as a good lesson to Steam Controller owners to proactively watch where their charging pucks are located, especially surrounding other magically attracted objects and devices. For more details, the Steam Controller’s manual also highlights this problem and warns against putting magnetically sensitive devices near the puck. Valve even mentions possible disruptions to some medical devices if the puck is in close proximity.
The Steam Controller is Valve's latest gaming product that takes the input controls from the Steam Deck and squeezes them down into a controller form factor. The controller is available for $99 on the Steam store and features 35+ hours of battery life.
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