Every day I wake up and thank the lord of advancing technologies that we no longer have controllers with cords. Then I blow a kiss to the engineers at Sony for not making the players use the incredibly expensive, and frankly environmentally hazardous, AA batteries anymore. I end my morning religious ritual with a sigh when I realize that despite all these wonderful technologies, I must still charge the controllers themselves. Untangling those horrid cords again is cruel reminder that we will never escape their clutches. How I long for the day when we are provided a twenty-five year life span nuclear battery pack. But until that day, I’ll just stick to the lovely charging dock created by the folks over at Numskull.
Coinciding with the release of the PlayStation 5, Numskull Designs have released their PS5 Fast Charge Twin Charging Dock. This charging station allows you to charge two DualSense controllers at once, ensuring you’re never without a fully charged controller when you need one.
Featuring light indicators, the dock will show which controller is charging and when said controller is fully charged. While I understand the logic of red being “charging” and green being “charged”, I can’t help but wish they had gone with blue and red instead, to match up with the color scheme of the PlayStation 5 itself. Is this a nitpick likely brought on by underlining OCD? You bet it is. But it’s just about the only flaw I can find with this product, so deal with it.
The bottom of the dock has some no-skid grips and is fairly compact when compared to previous charging stations I’ve used. The controllers themselves sit upside down into each port to charge. They easily slide into the charging ports due to the small USB-C attachment that comes along with the dock. These small plug-ins stick into the top of the DualSense, and slip right into the ports on the dock. This significantly helps with plugging the controller in, but it also avoids accidentally snapping off the tooth of the charging port itself, which has happened with many previous charging stations I’ve used. I originally thought the small plugs on the controller would annoy me. But after days of playing, I’ve yet to actually notice them. Your fingers never touch them, and they are so small and light you really can’t even tell. That said, I can imagine them being easy to lose, so just be aware.
The station charges fairly fast and seems on par with using a USB cable plugged directly into your console. While I haven’t used the official PlayStation 5 dock, I really don’t see what it could do better than this one, except for maybe having the controllers plug into the bottom, and not needing the small adapters.
In the end, Numskull’s PS5 Fast Charge Twin Charging Dock is a quality alternative to the official charging dock. While it does require adapters, this actually makes placing the controllers into the dock much easier. And considering it’s half the price of the official dock, it’s well worth the money. It really all comes down to your personal aesthetic. It’s a fine charging dock that does the job just as well as the official from Sony.
You can buy the Numskull PS5 DualSense Controller Charging Station from Amazon US for $16.99 or from Amazon UK for £14.99.
Numskull PS5 Fast Charge Twin Charging Dock
$16.99
Pros
- Stylish and fast
- Easy to place/remove controllers
- Cheaper than the official
Cons
- Green light clashes with color scheme
- Adapters might get lost
