Sony Announces New PS5 Beta Update for Pairing DualSense Controllers to Multiple Devices and Upcoming Power Saving Update to Reduce Power Consumption While Gaming

Sony has announced a new update coming to PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro users who have opted into the PS5 Beta program, meant to make pairing your DualSense controller to multiple devices at a time a "seamless" process. The update, which is being pushed tomorrow for users in the beta program, will let you switch from using your DualSense controller wirelessly on one device to another, without having to re-pair it every time.

The PlayStation Blog post describes a process through which after you've initially paired your DualSense or DualSense Edge controller with your PS5, PC, and mobile device, through a combination of pressing the PS button and one of the face buttons, you can switch between devices.

"With this update, you can now register up to four devices simultaneously, and easily switch between them directly from your controller," writes Shuzo Kikuchi, vice president of product management at Sony. "For example, you can take your controller which you use with your PS5, then seamlessly switch connection to a PC to play PC games, or connect it to a smartphone to enjoy Remote Play from your PS5. With this enhanced flexibility, you can enjoy gaming more freely across multiple devices."

Once you've properly paired your controller to a device the first time, going through the prescribed button presses in the example chart below should let you switch from one device to another, without skipping a beat.

Note that this chart doesn't mean you'll need to set up device switching in this exact way, it is just an example of how you can have up to four devices paired to one controller and switch between them.

Slot Number	Button Used	Player Indicator Lights	Connected Device
Slot 1	PS button and Triangle button	One light on	PS5
Slot 2	PS button and Circle button	Two lights on	PS5 Pro
Slot 3	PS button and Cross button	Three lights on	Windows PC
Slot 4	PS button and Square button	Four lights on	iPhone

The other key element of the blog post announcing this update is a feature that won't be in tomorrow's update but will be in a future one. A power-saving mode is coming down the pipeline, which will reduce the amount of power your console is pulling while playing games that support the feature.

Meaning that if you're playing, say, Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, and it supports this power saving feature, then with the feature enabled, your PS5/PS5 Pro device will draw less power to run the game. This will result in performance being scaled back, and it also disables features like VR support for games that have a VR mode. The intent of the mode is to reduce the environmental footprint caused by running your PS5/PS5 Pro at full power whenever you're using it.

If you're a player who cares about having a smooth framerate and/or being able to play with graphical features like ray-tracing, then it's doubtful you'll ever use a mode like this. But for games that don't require that much power to run them at a smooth framerate, and ones that don't even have higher-fidelity options in terms of graphics, like most pixel-art games, it's a solid option to reduce the environmental impact, and perhaps even your own electricity bill.

For now though, we're still waiting to see how many games will even support the feature, and the specifics around how it'll work.

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