Shuhei Yoshida, President of Sony’s worldwide studios has tweeted that the lightbar on the DualShock 4 controller cannot be turned off.
The lightbar on PS4 controller is used to detect motion control with the PlayStation camera, similar to the Move controllers. It can be used by developers to boost up the game’s experience, such as the way it works as a health bar in KillZone: Shadow Fall.
As Yoshida said, the lightbar cannot be turned off. Yoshida also said that the lightbar cannot be deactivated in order to conserve the controller’s battery.