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Oculus GO Use when Plugged In?

Shadowmask72
Honored Visionary
I think a number of people are worried about Oculus' recommendation of not using the GO whilst "charging" . I am not sure if that extends to plugged in whilst the battery is fully charged, but let's assume it does. The 2.5 - 3 hours battery life comes as a bit of a downer if say a movie lasts 3 or more hours (and there are plenty of those in recent times). One of the GO's biggest selling points is viewing movie content, but seems to stumble with the battery limitation. Also for those on long haul flights/journeys, having to charge the device back up to full can take up to 3 hours which is a bit of a shame. Some people are likely to opt for an external portable USB charging unit to keep the device topped up or recharged when in the field.

Now I posed this question on Reddit which was kindly answered by Oculus tech communications officer Lisa Jaloza who reiterated not to use GO whilst "charging". No other reasons were provided.  But it's the reasons why that is important here. Are Oculus simply being overly cautious or is there a real danger of diminishing the life of the battery far quicker when using it this way.

There is quite a bit of anecdotal evidence as of now where people have used the GO whilst it's plugged in/charging with seemingly no ill side effects. However, we don't know if there is risk over the longer term to the battery life or potential hazard of something much worse. 

@cybereality Please can someone at Oculus answer this question in greater detail rather than saying a blanket response. I think this is quite important and if there is no real risk to users then surely they can be the judge of whether they want to use it whilst plugged in. 

That said, PL has just offered a tear-down showing the 2600mah battery inside making a good case for modification to a better battery.




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61 REPLIES 61

Pixelfox
Expert Protege
WaPo report today on an exploding Vape device that killed the user by driving pieces of the device into his brain:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/05/16/man-died-after-a-vape-pen-exploded-...

"The report blamed the incidents on the prevalence of lithium-ion batteries in the products. “No other consumer product places a battery with a known explosion hazard such as this in such close proximity to the human body,” it said. “It is this intimate contact between the body and the battery that is most responsible for the severity of the injuries that have been seen. While the failure rate of the lithium-ion batteries is very small, the consequences of a failure, as we have seen, can be severe and life-altering for the consumer.”

Shadowmask72
Honored Visionary
Yeh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMy2_qNO2Y0


System Specs: MSI NVIDIA RTX 4090 , i5 13700K CPU, 32GB DDR 4 RAM, Win 11 64 Bit OS.

LZoltowski
Champion



Well this is a bit of a misleading video, the 2 fail-safes have clearly been disabled

This is what happens when Li batteries overcharge 
  1. the Cathode material becomes an oxidizing agent, producing CO2 and the battery starts to bloat
  2. a current interrupt device (CID) should kick in at around 120psi and stop the current being delivered
  3. should the CID fail, there is one more extreme failsafe the battery is meant to rapture in one place and vent with flame, the rapture point is specifically designed not for the battery to become a bomb
There are also numerous protections in both the Power Delivery device (the charger, all good ones, have overvoltage, overcurrent and overcharge circuitry) as well as Power Receiving device has fail-safes in place.
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LZoltowski
Champion

Pixelfox said:

No other consumer product places a battery with a known explosion hazard such as this in such close proximity to the human body,”

Um ... what about phones? What an odd statement.
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Plan-B
Protege

Um ... what about phones? What an odd statement.


Well, if you're talking about modern smartphones, the usage pattern is different from a vape. On average, a phone can easily be 14-16 inches away from your face during screen time, and even if it's being used as an actual phone, all modern devices have speakerphones. So there's an option to keep it farther from that very sensitive part of your body. A vape, by its very nature, can only be used in direct contact with your face. And used while the device is actively draining the battery at a very rapid rate.

What I find odd about this whole deal about Oculus' warning is that you can't even charge the device with the power off. It has to be on to charge and if it's off when you plug it in, it powers back on. So: "Hey, don't use it while charging. But also, we're not gonna let you charge it while it's off. Nah nah, nah nah nah nah!"

Zenbane
MVP
MVP
I think that automobiles should come with a warning label for the mere act of driving. Afterall, driving on a road is one of the highest risks of injury/death:
https://www.drive-safely.net/driving-statistics/

If you drive a vehicle every day, then you tempt Death as a hobby. Using GO while charging is just foreplay.

LZoltowski
Champion

Zenbane said:
If you drive a vehicle every day, then you tempt Death as a hobby. Using GO while charging is just foreplay.


Flying through the air at 35,000 feet in a metal coke can propelled by nothing but super combustible fuel and giant fans completes the orgy.
Core i7-7700k @ 4.9 Ghz | 32 GB DDR4 Corsair Vengeance @ 3000Mhz | 2x 1TB Samsung Evo | 2x 4GB WD Black
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Be kind to one another 🙂

Anonymous
Not applicable

Pixelfox said:

WaPo report today on an exploding Vape device that killed the user by driving pieces of the device into his brain:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/05/16/man-died-after-a-vape-pen-exploded-...

"The report blamed the incidents on the prevalence of lithium-ion batteries in the products. “No other consumer product places a battery with a known explosion hazard such as this in such close proximity to the human body,” it said. “It is this intimate contact between the body and the battery that is most responsible for the severity of the injuries that have been seen. While the failure rate of the lithium-ion batteries is very small, the consequences of a failure, as we have seen, can be severe and life-altering for the consumer.”




Sort of like driving an automobile? The risks are being blown all out of proportion. Over 33000 people died of automobile accidents in the US in 2015.

Although there are inherent risks to using Lithium batteries the impression provided by the media is way out of proportion to the actual incidents of death or major injury actually caused by the Lithium battery. For example the vast majority of injuries from hoverboards wasn't lithium battery fires but from falls off the hoverboard due to inexperienced riders.

As soon as the price of the Go drops I plan to buy a second one to hack in an interchangeable higher capacity battery pack that will be charged separately from the Go and allow longer use and interchangeability. It will be mounted on the back headband to better balance the Go. And based on the reported current 2500 mAh battery will allow more on the order of 5-7 hours of continuous use based on the use of two 23650 3500 mAh batteries.

rrafa
Honored Guest


Where did Oculus tell us not to charge while using?  I didn't see that during setup or anything.


Yeah, same here, where is it?

kojack
MVP
MVP

rrafa said:



Where did Oculus tell us not to charge while using?  I didn't see that during setup or anything.


Yeah, same here, where is it?


If you scroll up a little, 10 posts above you is a big photo I took of the Go manual page that tells you that.

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