Follow up to what hasn't come across in my rambling. I would have assumed quest 3 had 'fast charging' that's standard on many Android devices and even other standalone headsets today. By which I mean able to sustain a 20, 25 or even 30w charge for a decent time throughout charging Turns out, meta only claim a 'fast charge' when used with their official dock and a 45+w charger which they don't even include. I'm unable to test the dock as I refuse to pay that cost, but the long short of it is the quest 3 simply uses alot more power compared to other standalone headsets that come before despite doing the same things and takes a very long time to charge regardless of power supply. it does not sustain anywhere near 18w for any length of time on any power supply when charging in standby or off state. The included 18w power supply is not enough for charging and playing as can be seen by the power draw from wall simply having screen on in video, meta do not recommend that you charge and play and there are safety measures to throttle or even cut charging when it gets hot. I personally expected better, given how the pico headsets I have (which are much cheaper) have implemented 25w charging even for the older- not as power hungry xr2 chip, which even in worst case situations that drain battery fast, you have minimal down time between sessions. For me, this leaves my typical quest 3 use limited to one session a day, in mixed reality this is sometimes barely over an hour use then 2.30-3 hours to charge for another short session, giving it less time to charge it hardly has any battery life and the session is then incredibly short. You will absolutely need an additional battery but then comes the new issue of those older ones you may have such as the bobo not being able to supply sufficient power and actually running into issues straining the batteries themselves, throttling voltage or stopping any charge completely. A minimum of 18w charge will be required if using an external battery and even then, I'd recommend starting with the headset at 100% as the quest 3 can throttle its own charge based on temperature. This may seem like a gripe, but it's a huge trade off for headset that's already very power hungry. If anyone can actually test the dock for its claim of fast charging I'm all ears, I'd want to know why pogo pins can apparently do it but not the usb C port people actually use
Glad to see someone else scratching the head about the claimed unrealistic 45W charging. I tried several chargers with PD ports and proper meters and I never got more than 22W draw from the chargers with the screens turned on. Not sure where and why Meta came up with that number. Maybe a sales pitch?
These cables are dead handy, won't tell you absolutely everything but all you really need to care about is wattage, if you have a 9v 2amp charger and the device supports PD charge, it should be supplied 18 watt Quest 3 seems to jump to 18 watt for a second and then goes back to 11-13w. That's not normal especially as it's doing it across the whole battery level. It's normal to have lower charge rate the more the battery is charged, but whatever is happening on quest 3 is obviously crap. It's draining internal battery fast and then being slow to charge, the worst combo which is why it'll be nuking those Bobo batteries, if we assume even 15w steady charge state right now, I'm seeing 30w draw from wall just having screen on, not in any game, that charge requirement is already over what bobo battery can supply, which is why I had a very long time to see my level go from 10% to 11% in home environment. Under load, it'll be absolutely rinsing those poor bobo batteries right now. Ironically, meta just announced update for a power saving mode- a bit tone deaf right now with these concerns.
@@virtuallyreal there are dedicated usb wattage readers, that show volt and ampere and lots of other stats on a display. they look like a cross and only cost 15 bucks or so, might be worth getting if you want to dig deeper.
@@Maebbie yeah my tester will show everything but just a little annoying having to be plug side, normally I just use it for testing for bad cables, you don't expect to have to resort to it on headsets 🫣
@jaybratt, I think I have a test for you Looking at metas website, they state 2.3 hours for included 18w power supply, that's crafty What's more worrying, is the charging dock listing on meta website. It states spec wise, that it's contact power is 27w, and controller wireless power 2w X2, that's not entirely clear if that's deduced from 27w, but I'll assume it is. Meta don't supply a charger with that dock and say to use the original, which if shared between headset and controllers, means even slower charging. Worst of all, meta say for fast charging, buy their 45w adapter to use with the dock, which has me suspecting the usb port itself doesn't support fast charging, which would tie into me not actually seeing a consistent 18w charge through it. If you have the dock and a power supply that's 45w/65w/ anything, could you run some tests of how long the headset only takes to charge using it in comparison to the usb port? Better if you have the voltage tester to see what is being pulled when using the dock. If they are forcing a situation where you can only fast charge on the dock, consumers need to know this
@@Geoffwhite18 likely why they are implementing an update that adds 'power saving' by cutting graphics, be interesting to see what exactly they have done and if it's even worth visual trade off using that.
Well more power cycles also kills battery faster especially when you drain it to 0 or almost 0. Yet they didn't put battery in easy to access place or provide bigger battery... So it is kinda weird to put 18W limit.
If I charge my Q3 while using it, it will maintain full charge for about 20-30 minutes and then start to drain, then I will see the amber light is flashing (which means it's not getting enough charge). Sometimes a warning message will say that there is debris in the charging port and charging has been disabled...this can happen with any chord but mostly happens with extension cables. However...even with all those issues, my headset never goes below 80%. I think there is just a threshold that the Q3 wants to maintain for battery longitivity...which is around 70-80% depending on what charger you're using. I'm not completely sure about that theory, however like I said...my Q3 charge will drop until 70-80% range and then stop there. This wouldn't be so bad if I was used to it, but my mind is conditioned to have everything fully charged all the time smh. Anyways, I love the Q3 and hope the charging can be optimized with updates...if we complain about it enough maybe they will do it.
Glad to see someone else scratching the head about the claimed unrealistic 45W charging. I tried several chargers with PD ports and proper meters and I never got more than 22W draw from the chargers with the screens turned on. Not sure where and why Meta came up with that number. Maybe a sales pitch?
The only reference to fast charging they make is with their dock. Im absolutely not spending that sort of money to find out, but that's through pogo pins, doesn't even come with a power supply ( LOL ) and apparently spreads 45w between headset and 2 controllers. Looking at their spec for the dock that would suggest over the typical 18w max charge out of use, but that would be a pretty scummy move to only allow that on pogo pins. Not sure anyone else is actually bothered by this anymore and just accept it, but would be nice for someone with the dock to actually test it.
Yeah I've seen evidence of this first hand. Apparently meta engineers are aware of it and "For safety and performance reasons, your headset’s battery also may not fully charge if it is plugged in while in use and exceeds the optimal charging temperature. Once the device is no longer in use and its temperature has returned to normal, your device should resume charging to 100% while plugged in to charge." I'd wager if they allowed the device to charge properly during use and have the xr2 gen 2 chip going full pelt the cooling in the quest eouldn't keep up.
There's more wattage because the BMS compensate the actual draw of the unit and still get the battery to charge. On or off the battery will charge at the same rate 😊 problem is with lower capacity charger that canot provide more than 18 amps the unit will charge much slower while in use
Charging station also not fast charging. They recommend a 45w charger as it needs to do both controllers as well The quest 3 just doesn't have any special fast charging, only standard 18w.
Probably a safety thing. Safer to have more watts when you are monitoring it with it on you and less watts when you're powered off charging it likely your asleep or in another room.not monitoring it.
Hey guys, I found the cure. I bought a new battery strap from a factory store in China. It definitely can extend the main battery life quite a lot. With almost 2 hours of playing DCS, I still have 92%
Is there a possibility you can turn off base tracking? And charge it with the headset on I do that with my oculus two to speed charge and to take my headset off and not lose my position in a game. You can also cover the front camera with a piece of tape and it will not track your face from inside, not turning the screen black when you walk away makes a huge difference when playing a shooter or anything VR chat you don’t get kicked out let me elaborate by tracking I basically mean you maximize all your settings so that it runs and doesn’t sleep for four hours. You go into your sleep mode and turn everything off for me that’s worked miracles with charging the headset you have to get up and manually shut it off or just stay on forever though.
I don't think anything is wrong exactly, my Steam Deck used more power on use too but I assumed it was just charging the battery while also powering the device at the same time. Kinda like using 12 watts to maintain the battery and the rest 20 plus watts to charge it. Just a guess from a clueless dude.
Yep that's what's happening. Normal behaviour but the main issue is it won't actually hold a decent charge rate, you don't actually get an '18w' charge as it's mostly sat on 11w or 13w. So whatever is holding back charge is hurting not only basic recharge time but also the delivery of power from any external batteries, will have to get a helper so I can keep eye on voltage reader and do more testing.
Feels like some demanding games like Asgard's Wrath 2 will not be able to keep up charging during play because it draws more than 25W and the Charging limit on the headset is around 18w and maybe up to 25W max during certain percentage as appears in this video.
If you have the meta charging dock, they recommend their 45Wh power brick for faster charging? lol 🤷♂️ Also the Elite battery strap has a widespread problem with charging too 🙈
Considering returning mine. I have it plugged in for days and it doesn’t charge to 100 even with a 45 watt charger. Seems like they just have issues that need ironing out and I’m sick of being a beta tester for shit this expensive
I recently replaced quest 3 (the previous one had a Hot pixel which had to be reported after many months), I got a new or refurbished set (although no one seems to have used it before), and to my surprise, with the goggles turned on, the charging reaches 74% and stops. , the battery is marked as charging, but the counter is at 74%, no matter whether I use the original charger or the 45W charger from Rog Ally. When the goggles are in sleep mode or turned off, they charge to 100%. I didn't notice this happening on the charger before, but I can't rule it out, I always played with Bobo VR batteries, and they didn't actually charge above 75%, I always turned them on below 75% because otherwise they made a rattling sound when I turned them on at a higher percentage of charge. In the meantime, there was also a software change. Does anyone else have goggles that don't fully charge while using them? Is this an error and is it worth reporting?
Pretty sure what you are seeing is... (* as android phone does it too)... The batteries will pull 11w or 12w till it reaches 90% then drops to 7w trickle charging to 100%.. Then when it is on it's still charging pulling the 11 or 12w but additionally it makes a new load of 10 or 15w for running the system.. Good chance the batteries or charging board can only handle 10 or 11w...
QUICK QUESTION.. There have been videos stating that while playing games, the wall power cannot keep the headset charged like you can with Q2. This makes no sense to me after watching your video coming from wall while on. Can you confirm that the wall power WILL OR WILL NOT keep headset powered while playing???
The supplied 18w charger isn't enough to fully maintain charge when playing on quest 3. You can use a better power supply (say 30w) but then depending on load and heat, the quest 3 throttles it's charge rate anyway so may find situations where it won't charge until cooled, so best to stick to starting with 100% charge rate and then playing with wall power, trying to charge up a depleted battery when playing is what will cause the issues.
Yeah that was what I was saying. Start with 100% plugged in while playing.....was curious to how long it lasted playing while plugged into wall vs external battery. Sounds like it should be similar to a 18w external time length. Ive seen where 18w externals will run out after about 3 hours and headset will have about 85% left. So that would tell me that you get about 3 hours per 15% use with 18w. Thanks for the video.
I bought a USB/A to USB/C powered cable with a 30 watt Samsung charger, and after 2 hours of play on the Quest 3, I down down to less that 20%. Returning the cable since it's useless.
It will always use power from headset, which is why you need a battery capable of over 18w charge, fully charged headset will still draw around 9w from an additional battery when in use to maintain 100% charge. If you have the bobo batteries from quest 2 like I do, they aren't enough power to keep the headset charged and deplete very quickly.
so is it possible to charge the headset while playing and if so how to do it saftly? saw few link cables with a box that you can plug in the charger and to PC at the same time to keep it charged. please help as i would like to be able to play it more than an hour or two. (or watch a 3 hours movie)
You need more than the supplied 18w charger, anything above 30w will cover it, start your play session with 100% charge and it'll keep the strain off, trying to actually charge up from lower battery and play is where it can get hot. For link pc play, you can use power injected link cables, but these are a bit sketchy with reliability so I can't recommend any particular brands. You will want one that can provide 18w power along side the data connection at least.
Does going into Developer mode change this at all? Visually it looks like the device wants more than 20 power but there seems to be a "whoops, can't do that" behavior going on.
my quest 3 has a broken gpu. i see some pink and blue pixels sometimes. i cannot load the store or new games also issues with the app. today i sent my quest 3 return.
I’m using it wireless on virtual desktop with 20wats power bank with PD and never ever quest 3 was completely dead it kinda maintained charge trough 8 hour play . I don’t really think that’s an issue with this at all mate
@@virtuallyreal what about mic quality ? Mine one is a lot worse and other people I met in vr playing with Quest 3 all sound worse as well . When it comes to charge with quest 3 pd power delivery charge works for me
@@zalievac mic quality is poor even on the built in recordings for me, seems to suffer from bad plosive popping that seems random and has heavy background removal, possibly worse for people with a harsher louder voices than me. oculus link couldn't even use the mic and I've done my usual troubleshooting for a fix (what this channel is really for) but can't even fix that myself lol.
@@rangerkayla8824 120hz mode doesn't actually change everything, it's still only the selected few apps that have 120hz support from quest 2, I've done video on this.
It seems that bug just keeps coming back. Literally the first video on this channel having that issue on the original oculus quest 🤣🤣 For that one, it was fixed in a later firmware update, I've no idea what's happening on quest 3 anymore, I haven't been using it at all
That's not the issue at all . The included power supply is only 18w, which is not enough for a headset that can draw more than that, as video shows even with better power supply, it's still slow to charge. The power supply and cable used in this video is much more expensive and trustworthy than the cheap china stuff included in the box of quest 3 😉
The BMS will take what it needs for peak charging to the battery. When the headset is on it draws additional power to power the headset itself. So the "for whatever reason" you speak of is the battery can only charge at 18w. IF you use only a 18w charger it will probably charge the battery at even less current while the headset is on. I am sure meta does this for the specific reason of maximizing battery longevity. Therefore your statement of a charging issue is not the case. You should know how electronics work before coming up with crazy ideas....Waste of time
No matter what charger used, you don't actually get 18w figure as a charge though, you can see mine sitting at barely over an amp and it does this throughout battery level, off or in stand by, which is likely why it's been said the included charger can't do 18w and is 'crap' it's not the charger to blame. There's not been any 'fast' charging happening at all, which a PD charge would at least sit at 18w for at least some time throughout charging. Every other standalone is happy with 20w and trickles down the more it's charged, 25w in cases on my picos I wouldn't mind if it could actually charge at 18w, but it takes a considerably longer time to recharge this quest 3 than any of my other headsets, while also being the most thirsty in use.
The standard charger is 18w and isn't enough to power the headset in use and maintain battery level, has all the same problems of slow charge no matter power supply used.
@@virtuallyreal even if it drains, whats the issue? you can still charge it later. if its that big of a deal what id do is get maybe like a 30w charger 65 or whatever is probably too much for it to handle
@@Itz_BlackThunder Getting a 30W is enough to keep the thing charged while playing because I do see it draws more power when it's actively running. So at least it'll keep it topped off and not drain even if the % doesn't go up. I really wonder who's gonna play more than 4-5 hours in a VR headset at once and take no breaks?
