Controller Vibration Test.
Fire your controller's rumble motors straight from the browser. Trigger the heavy (low-frequency) and fine (high-frequency) motors together or one at a time, dial in the intensity and duration, and feel exactly which motor responds. It's the fastest way to prove both motors still work, catch a dead one, or confirm rumble is reaching the pad before you start a game. Uses the Gamepad API's vibration actuator on Chromium browsers and supported controllers.
Online controller vibration test.
The heavy motor is the low-frequency strong rumble; the fine motor is the high-frequency weak buzz. Set each level, pick a duration, then fire.
What a rumble test should show
- Both motors respondFire the heavy and fine motors separately. You should feel a deep, slow rumble from one and a lighter, faster buzz from the other. If one side is silent, that motor or its solder joint has failed.
- Intensity scalesSlide each motor from low to high and fire again. The strength should rise with the slider — a motor stuck at full or barely moving whatever you set points to a driver or wiring fault.
- It stops on commandHit Stop and the rumble should cut instantly. A motor that keeps buzzing after you stop, or won't start until you jiggle the pad, has a sticking weight.
- Use a wired connection to be sureBluetooth rumble is flakier than USB across browsers. If nothing fires wirelessly, plug the pad in and retry before you blame the hardware.
How to test controller vibration
- 1Connect on Chrome or Edge. Rumble uses the Gamepad vibration actuator, which is a Chromium feature. Plug in a wired Xbox or DualSense pad for the most reliable result — Firefox and Safari expose little or no rumble.
- 2Press any button to wake the pad. The browser hides a gamepad until its first input. Once it's awake, the readout shows whether the actuator is supported.
- 3Set the levels and fire. Choose a strength for the heavy and fine motors and a duration, then hit Test both motors — or fire one motor at a time to isolate a dead side. Press Stop any time.
- 4Follow up on other faults. Rumble fine but buttons or sticks acting up? Run the full gamepad tester or the stick drift test.
How the browser drives your rumble motors
Most controllers have two rumble motors, each with an off-centre weight: a big, slow heavy motor for deep low-frequency rumble and a smaller, faster fine motor for a high-frequency buzz. The Gamepad API exposes them through a vibrationActuator on each pad. Calling playEffect('dual-rumble', …) with a strongMagnitude (heavy) and weakMagnitude (fine) from 0 to 1, plus a duration, spins them — and this test builds exactly that call from the sliders.
The effect runs for the duration you set and then stops on its own; hitting Stop calls reset() to cut it immediately. Firing one motor means sending magnitude to only its channel — heavy-only sets the strong value and leaves the weak at zero, and vice versa — which is how you tell a dead motor from a working one. Where a browser exposes only the older hapticActuators.pulse() instead, the test falls back to a single-strength buzz.
Rumble support is uneven, and that's a browser limitation, not a fault in your pad. Chromium browsers (Chrome, Edge, Opera) drive dual-rumble on wired Xbox and DualSense controllers well; Bluetooth is hit-or-miss, and Firefox and Safari expose little or nothing. The DualSense's fine haptics and adaptive triggers aren't reachable from the web at all — only the basic two-motor rumble is.
When a vibration test helps
Rumble stopped in a game
If a game's vibration went quiet, fire the motors here. Working in the browser but not in-game means the game's rumble setting is off, not the pad.
One side feels dead
Fire the heavy and fine motors separately to pin down which motor has failed — often a snapped wire or a cracked solder joint on one side.
Buying a used controller
Sellers rarely mention a weak motor. A ten-second rumble test tells you both motors still spin at full strength before you pay.
After opening the shell
Re-seated a ribbon cable or replaced a motor? Confirm both sides fire and stop cleanly before you screw it back together.
Checking a new pad
Straight out of the box, verify the rumble matches the other side and neither weight rattles or sticks.
Testing rumble strength
Compare two controllers at the same intensity to feel which has stronger, cleaner motors — useful when picking between pads.
Vibration test glossary
- vibrationActuator
- The Gamepad API object that drives a controller's rumble. Its playEffect method spins the motors from a web page on supporting browsers.
- dual-rumble
- The standard effect type with two channels — strong (heavy) and weak (fine) — each set from 0 to 1 for a given duration.
- Heavy motor
- The large, slow motor that produces deep low-frequency rumble. Driven by the strong magnitude.
- Fine motor
- The small, fast motor that produces a light high-frequency buzz. Driven by the weak magnitude.
- Haptic actuator
- An older, simpler vibration interface some browsers expose, with a single-strength pulse instead of two channels.
- Adaptive triggers
- The DualSense's variable trigger resistance — a separate system from rumble that no browser can drive.
Frequently asked questions
Why won't my controller rumble in the browser?
Rumble depends on the Gamepad vibration actuator, which only Chromium browsers (Chrome, Edge, Opera) implement well — Firefox and Safari expose little or none. Use Chrome or Edge, connect the pad by USB rather than Bluetooth if you can, and press a button first to wake it. If the readout says no actuator is exposed, that combination of pad and browser simply can't drive rumble; it isn't necessarily a hardware fault.
Does this work with Xbox and PS5 controllers?
Yes, on Chromium. A wired Xbox Series/One pad and a wired DualSense both expose the dual-rumble actuator, so the heavy and fine motors fire from the sliders. The DualSense's advanced fine haptics and adaptive triggers are not reachable from any browser — only the basic two-motor rumble is — but that's exactly what this test drives.
What's the difference between the heavy and fine motors?
Controllers carry two motors with different weights. The heavy motor is large and slow, producing a deep low-frequency rumble (the "strong" magnitude); the fine motor is small and fast, producing a lighter high-frequency buzz (the "weak" magnitude). Firing them separately lets you feel each one and confirm neither has failed — a common single-side fault.
Can I test rumble over Bluetooth?
Sometimes. Bluetooth rumble support varies a lot by browser, OS and controller, and often a Bluetooth pad reports as connected but won't vibrate. If nothing fires wirelessly, connect the controller with a USB cable and try again before concluding a motor is dead — a wired connection is the reliable way to test.
The rumble won't stop — what do I do?
Press Stop, which calls the actuator's reset to cut the effect immediately. If a stuck weight keeps buzzing, disconnect and reconnect the controller. Effects here are also time-limited by the duration you set, so they end on their own; a motor that keeps running well past the set duration has a mechanical sticking problem.
Is the vibration test free and private?
Yes. It's free with no sign-up and drives your controller entirely from the browser through the Gamepad API — nothing is installed and nothing about your pad is uploaded. The rumble commands run on your device; close the page and it all stops.