Sound quality is obviously super important for a PC gaming headset, as are long-term comfort, ambient noise isolation, and a microphone with clear noise cancellation. Ideally, it should also have replaceable ear pads for extended lifespan and a frame that doesn’t creak.
All of those things are well-known givens. But when I’m shopping for a PC gaming headset these days, there’s one other feature that has become non-negotiable for me: hot-swappable batteries.
I never even knew I’d love these so much until I got my SteelSeries Arctis Pro Wireless five years ago. It was an on-sale extravagance—a treat to myself during the pandemic—that has opened my eyes to the wonders of hot-swappable batteries. All these years later, it has become one of my favorite PC gaming accessories. Here’s why.
Who cares about battery life?
I love wireless gadgets. I have a wireless gaming keyboard and a ridiculously unnecessary wireless gaming mouse with a wireless charging mouse pad system. And while I don’t ever need to worry about charging my mouse, my keyboard still occasionally has me reaching for a USB cable. Phones, tablets, smartwatches, earbuds, and others things with batteries occasionally catch me out, too.
What I’m saying is, it’s a pain when you want to use a device but its battery is drained… so you can’t use it when you need it.
Jon Martindale / Foundry
But with my SteelSeries Arctis Pro Wireless, that’s just not something I need to think about thanks to its hot-swappable battery.
When the battery runs low, it beeps. I can then pop out the battery—like we used to do with cell phones back in the day—and pop it on the charger, then stick my backup battery in its place. It takes about five seconds and I have a fully charged headset again. I can do it while mid-game, and it’s so fast I don’t even have to warn my allies on Discord. I can even do it with one hand, if I feel so inclined.
Just like the Logitech PowerPlay mouse pad that ensures my wireless mouse stays charged while I’m using it—a big reason why that’s also one of my all-time favorite accessories—the hot-swappable battery in my Arctis Pro Wireless is the pinnacle of wireless battery convenience.
Expensive, but not a “halo” feature
The PC space has a number of great examples of so-called “halo” products. The kinds of gadgets and components that would be amazing to have… if they weren’t priced beyond reach.
Halo products are supposed to be aspirational and make you think the rest of the brand’s more affordable products are equally impressive. Think along the lines of Herman Miller’s “gaming” chairs or Nvidia’s Titan-esque RTX 5090 graphics card. These are products that simply aren’t designed with everyday people in mind.
SteelSeries
Hot-swappable batteries aren’t like that. Yes, they’re only available on some of the more expensive wireless gaming headsets, but they aren’t thousands of dollars. The newer version of my own headset—the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless—is only around $310 as of this writing. That’s not cheap, but it isn’t prohibitive either.
The Turtle Beach Stealth Pro Wireless has a similar hot-swappable battery design, and that one retails for around $330. But I’ve seen it on sale for closer to $200 at times, making it a viably cheaper alternative to the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless option.
And if you’re more interested in headphones than a headset (i.e., you don’t need a built-in mic), the Fairphone Fairbuds XL are about $250.
It’s a feature worth fighting for
While I might be tempted to describe hot-swappable batteries as a “nice-to-have” feature, it’s actually reached the point of a “must-have” for me when it comes to buying future PC headsets.
But that sort of puts me in a pickle. I’m honestly surprised that hot-swappable batteries in headsets haven’t caught on as widely as I’d hoped, even so many years on from my original SteelSeries purchase. There just aren’t that many options to choose from.
I’ve found some headsets like mine that can do what I want, but not as many as there should be. There are amazing gaming headsets out there with fantastic sound quality, great comfort, and long battery life, but once you go beyond a certain point, all that’s almost redundant.
Fairphone
A 30-hour battery life is useful, sure, but in reality, if I’m not charging it once a day, it only takes one slip-up and I’ll find myself wanting to use it one day but it won’t be charged enough. That means plugging it in and using it wired or waiting for it to charge, which defeats the point of a wireless headset in the first place.
Wireless headsets—and wireless devices in general—are about freedom. You aren’t supposed to worry about the tether, but a low battery warning always drags you back to reality: you are tethered and always have to worry about keeping it adequately charged.
Not so with hot-swappable batteries. It’s easy to keep a backup battery fully charged and ready to go, and I can stop worrying about how much battery is left in the actual headset. And when it runs out, it’s easy enough to swap out. It’s the best of all worlds.
Hot-swappable batteries are priceless
I know I said before that headsets with hot-swappable batteries aren’t halo products, but I’m not so delusional to think that $300 headsets are mainstream. It’s beyond what most people would consider “reasonable” for a headset. But if you are paying that much for a headset, then it should come with premium features that respect that premium price tag.
For me, hot-swappable batteries are the créme de la créme of gaming headset features. They make wireless work how it should. They’re so practical and useful that I won’t even consider a headset in that price range anymore if it doesn’t have them. Indeed, I don’t know if I’d buy any wireless headset without them ever again.
Author: Jon Martindale, Contributor, PCWorld
Jon Martindale is a voracious writer and technology fanboy who loves nothing more than digging into the specs of the latest graphics cards, processors, and displays. He's passionate about everything PC, but also enjoys experimenting with AIs, and covering new standing desks that can help avoid his worst posture habits.