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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.




System Specs: MSI NVIDIA RTX 4090 , i5 13700K CPU, 32GB DDR 4 RAM, Win 11 64 Bit OS.
61 REPLIES 61

desiv
Expert Protege
I would be a bit surprised if they are really worried about overheating and exploding from this.
Any properly designed battery management system would also monitor heat.  If the phone starts to get "too warm" then it should throttle down the charging/CPU use to decrease the heat.
This isn't some generic piece of electronics from some unknown company.

I would hope they have some decent thermal safety built in.
Yes, some Samsung phones had problems, so it can happen from a larger company if they push too hard.
But I would hope Oculus (Facebook) and Xiaomi have done a decent job on this.  The Samsung battery prob wasn't that long ago and I would think they would be fairly aware of that still...

I also think if it was really dangerous, they would just not allow it.  Device goes off when charging.  Software fix and done.  They didn't choose to do that.

I'm leaning more to this being an issue with ease of use, short cable provided, Oculus doesn't want to tell people to use a longer cord and then see youtube videos of people getting said cord caught on things popping up all over. 😉

desiv

LZoltowski
Champion
@desiv  Yup, John Carmack said it himself on twitter that it works fine while charging, just the cable is short.

stit6cur2dgq.jpg

Also, he is not telling people to not mod the GO, in fact, he is encouraging it, here is someone strapping a battery to the back

https://twitter.com/firagabird/status/993628797231448064
Core i7-7700k @ 4.9 Ghz | 32 GB DDR4 Corsair Vengeance @ 3000Mhz | 2x 1TB Samsung Evo | 2x 4GB WD Black
ASUS MAXIMUS IX HERO | MSI AERO GTX 1080 OC @ 2000Mhz | Corsair Carbide Series 400C White (RGB FTW!) 

Be kind to one another 🙂

Anonymous
Not applicable






I will ask again.  Where did Oculus say not to use the Go headset while charging?


Have you not read the first post?


Yes, I read the first post.  Where in that post does it say where Oculus says not to use the Go headset while charging?  I mean as a new user, is it in a manual someplace?  In the tutorial?  How does Oculus convey this information to Oculus customers?


Second paragraph down Shadowmask72 said:
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.


LZoltowski
Champion








I will ask again.  Where did Oculus say not to use the Go headset while charging?


Have you not read the first post?


Yes, I read the first post.  Where in that post does it say where Oculus says not to use the Go headset while charging?  I mean as a new user, is it in a manual someplace?  In the tutorial?  How does Oculus convey this information to Oculus customers?


Second paragraph down Shadowmask72 said:
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.




I think she was misinformed, John Carmack who is the Chief Technical officer at Oculus has said that it's fine.
Core i7-7700k @ 4.9 Ghz | 32 GB DDR4 Corsair Vengeance @ 3000Mhz | 2x 1TB Samsung Evo | 2x 4GB WD Black
ASUS MAXIMUS IX HERO | MSI AERO GTX 1080 OC @ 2000Mhz | Corsair Carbide Series 400C White (RGB FTW!) 

Be kind to one another 🙂

burning_airline
Expert Protege








I will ask again.  Where did Oculus say not to use the Go headset while charging?


Have you not read the first post?


Yes, I read the first post.  Where in that post does it say where Oculus says not to use the Go headset while charging?  I mean as a new user, is it in a manual someplace?  In the tutorial?  How does Oculus convey this information to Oculus customers?


Second paragraph down Shadowmask72 said:
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.




Right, but most new Oculus users don't ask that question on Reddit.  How did anyone know to ask this question?  Where did this prohibition originate?

Anonymous
Not applicable










I will ask again.  Where did Oculus say not to use the Go headset while charging?


Have you not read the first post?


Yes, I read the first post.  Where in that post does it say where Oculus says not to use the Go headset while charging?  I mean as a new user, is it in a manual someplace?  In the tutorial?  How does Oculus convey this information to Oculus customers?


Second paragraph down Shadowmask72 said:
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.




Right, but most new Oculus users don't ask that question on Reddit.  How did anyone know to ask this question?  Where did this prohibition originate?


In his youth he was known as grasshopper? 8^)

JustBob12
Explorer
I should get my Go on Tuesday but if this mysterious recommendation is nowhere to be found in the package I receive, then it's completely useless. It seems that this is what 'burning.airlines' is asking about. 

If this is only "Someone at Oculus said this", than this recommendation has no value, legally or otherwise.

Anonymous
Not applicable
The prohibition on using a charger whilst the Go is in use and the prohibition of using a power bank are clearly stated and quite comprehensively in the small booklet supplied with the Go.

And reads like brass plated butt covering.

kojack
MVP
MVP
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Author: Oculus Monitor,  Auto Oculus Touch,  Forum Dark Mode, Phantom Touch Remover,  X-Plane Fixer
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ElectronSpray
Protege
After reading this thread, I would recommend not to charge and play at the same time unless someone has confirmed specific app or game. My got too hot and paused while charging and playing poker game. Its terrible to think of an exploding device on my head :#