Steam Controller Charging Puck May Lack Protection—Redditor Nearly Starts Fire With Short Circuit

Valve's Steam Controller hasn't even been available for a month, and one user has already sounded the alarm bells on the controller's charging puck, which has exposed power pins for charging the wireless game controller. One Reddit user, u/Toikka, posted their experience with the Steam Conroller's puck, which unexpectedly started melting and nearly caused a fire after the user accidentally bridged the puck's exposed pogo pins with a metal Google Pixel Watch 3 smartwatch band, resulting in "sizzling" as a result of a short circuit. The user notes that this is likely user error, but some comments in the thread have pointed out that it seems reasonable to expect a $99 controller with exposed charging pins to have some sort of short circuit protection via a handshake with the controller or similar. Steam Support seems to agree, as the Redditor notes that the gaming giant's hardware team "has been in touch and is investigating," requesting that the user send the damaged items back in exchange for a replacement puck.

The relevant part of the user's post reads: "So my smartwatch's metallic strap accidentally touched the Puck's exposed contacts and started sizzling due to a short circuit. The smartwatch was on its own charger and the strap of it hit the Puck at the exact wrong angle. Almost started a fire." Notably, Valve's official manual for the Steam Controller warns against allowing metal items near the charging puck, because "magnetic parts may attract metallic items" and notes that "to reduce the potential risk of sparks and resulting property damage or possible injury, make sure that the wireless adapter and charging puck and Controller are free of metallic objects before connecting." There is, however, no warning to indicate that any contact with a metal object may result in a short circuit.