Controller Vibration Test: Check Both Rumble Motors Online

Press Both motors and a working controller rumbles for 0.8 seconds; press Strong (left) and Weak (right) to check each motor on its own, 3 pulses for a short on-off pattern, and Trigger motors for the impulse triggers on an Xbox One or Xbox Series pad. The status line under the sliders tells you whether the browser found a vibration actuator and whether the effect was accepted.

Vibration is the one part of a controller a browser can drive rather than just read, and it is also the part with the most gaps in support. Chrome and Edge expose it; Firefox and Safari do not. The gamepad tester on the home page has a single quick rumble button; this page lets you isolate each motor and change how hard and how long it runs.

How to test controller vibration

1. Open this page in Chrome or Edge, connect the controller over USB or Bluetooth and press any button. The status line should read Vibration actuator found. If it says the controller does not expose one, see the reasons further down.
2. Hold the controller in both hands, not on the desk. A weak motor at 60% is easy to miss through a tabletop, and you want to feel which grip is moving.
3. Press Both motors. You should feel the controller shake immediately for 0.8 seconds, and the status line changes to Effect sent. If you felt nothing, press Strong (left) and Weak (right) in turn.
4. Compare the two grips. The left grip should give a heavy, low rumble and the right a lighter buzz. One side silent while the other works means that motor or its connector, not the browser.
5. Press 3 pulses. The controller should buzz three distinct times, each 150 ms long with a 300 ms gap. A pattern that blurs into one long rumble means the controller or its connection cannot keep up with short effects.
6. Move the sliders and repeat. Strong at 100% and Duration at 3000 ms is the harshest test; strong at 20% is where a tired motor stops moving first. Press Reset to clear the status line.

Every button is disabled while an effect is playing, and the label changes to Vibrating until it finishes, so a 3000 ms run locks the panel for three seconds. The P1 to P4 slots at the top switch between controllers; each is driven separately.

What each pattern sends

Button	Strong motor	Weak motor	Length
Both motors	slider value	slider value	Duration slider
Strong (left)	slider value	0%	Duration slider
Weak (right)	0%	slider value	Duration slider
3 pulses	slider value	slider value	3 × 150 ms, 300 ms apart
Trigger motors	0%	0%	Duration slider, both triggers at 100%; falls back to 50% / 50% grip rumble when unsupported

The defaults are Strong motor 100%, Weak motor 60% and Duration 800 ms, which is roughly what a game sends for a heavy hit. The Duration slider runs from 200 to 3000 ms in 100 ms steps; the motor sliders run from 0 to 100% in steps of 5. All five patterns use the Gamepad API's dual-rumble effect, except Trigger motors, which asks for trigger-rumble first and falls back to dual-rumble if the controller or browser refuses.

Which browsers and controllers support vibration

Chrome and Edge on Windows, macOS, Linux and ChromeOS expose a vibration actuator for Xbox One and Series controllers, DualSense, DualShock 4, the Switch Pro Controller and most USB pads that use the standard mapping. Firefox and Safari read the same controllers fine but do not expose rumble, so this page always reports that the browser does not expose vibration there. Mobile browsers generally do not expose it either.

Whether the controller actually moves depends on the connection. Xbox controllers rumble over USB and Bluetooth in Chrome; DualSense and DualShock 4 rumble over USB and, depending on operating system and browser version, over Bluetooth. Some 8BitDo and generic pads only rumble in a particular mode or only when wired. If a pattern reports Effect sent but nothing happens, swap to a cable before you suspect the motor.

The browser cannot tell you how strong the motors are or whether one is weaker than it should be; only your hands can. It can also only drive what the Gamepad API describes: two motors plus, on Xbox, two trigger motors. The DualSense's adaptive trigger resistance and its speaker are not reachable, which the PS5 controller test explains in detail.

Why is my controller not vibrating?

• Wrong browser. Firefox and Safari do not implement gamepad vibration, and the status line says so. Open the page in Chrome or Edge on a desktop and press a button again.
• Bluetooth limits. Several pads accept rumble only over USB, or only after the first USB pairing. Plug in a cable, press a button so the browser picks up the wired connection, and retry.
• Another program owns the pad. Steam, DS4Windows or a remapping tool can take exclusive control and swallow rumble commands. Close it, or disable its controller support, and reconnect.
• Vibration disabled on the controller. Some pads and companion apps have a rumble on-off setting or intensity level, and the browser cannot override it. Check the controller's own settings or mode switch.
• Low battery. Many wireless controllers cut or weaken rumble when the battery runs low to save power. Charge it or run the test on a cable and compare.
• A failed motor or connector. If one grip works and the other is silent in every pattern and every connection, the motor, its wiring or the solder joint has failed. This is the only case the browser cannot help with.

Work down the list in order. A browser problem shows as a message before you press anything; a connection problem shows as Effect sent with no movement; a hardware problem shows as one motor working and the other not.

Strong motor vs weak motor: what you should feel

Most controllers carry two eccentric rotating mass motors: a larger one, usually in the left grip, and a smaller one in the right. The large motor spins a heavier weight at lower speed, which is the deep rumble of an explosion or an engine; the small motor spins faster and lighter, which is the buzz of a gunshot or a footstep. The Gamepad API calls these the strong and weak magnitudes, and games blend them continuously.

With Strong (left) at 100% the whole controller should shake and the left grip noticeably more. With Weak (right) at 100% the movement is smaller and higher-pitched, centred on the right grip. If both feel identical, the controller may be mapping both channels to one motor, which some cheap pads do, or it may have a single motor; which is the case depends on the model.

The DualSense is the exception. It replaces the spinning motors with two voice-coil actuators that can reproduce finer patterns, so the strong and weak effects feel crisper and shorter than on an Xbox pad. That is normal, not a weaker motor.

Xbox controller vibration test: trigger motors

Xbox One and Xbox Series controllers add two small motors inside the triggers. Press Trigger motors and, in Chrome over USB, both triggers should buzz under your index fingers while the grips stay still, because the pattern sets both grip motors to 0% and both triggers to 100%. The Xbox 360 controller has no trigger motors and ignores the request.

The trigger-rumble effect is accepted only by Chrome and only for those controllers. Everywhere else the tester falls back to a plain dual-rumble at half strength and the status line says so: a normal rumble was sent instead, which is expected rather than a fault. For the rest of the Xbox layout, including the analog triggers themselves, use the Xbox controller test.

When to run a vibration test

Run it after reassembling a controller, since the rumble motors are the first thing to come unplugged when the shell is opened. Run it before a warranty claim, because a screenshot of Effect sent with one motor silent is better evidence than a description. Run it on a second-hand pad along with the full gamepad tester sweep, because a dead motor is cheap to replace but worth a discount.

Rumble also reveals connection quality. If 3 pulses blur together or arrive late over Bluetooth but are crisp over USB, the link is congested; the polling rate test will show the same link reporting at a lower rate, and a cable fixes both.

Related tests

Check buttons, sticks and triggers with the gamepad tester, use the Xbox controller test for the full Xbox layout and the PS5 controller test for the DualSense, and measure how fast the controller reports over the same connection with the polling rate test.