Concerning the question of the light bar's existence.

Its inclusion in the controller is the same reason for the Kinect, Wii Mote, and GamePad have been bundled with their respective consoles.

It ensures that everyone has it, and considering the fact that the camera uses it to track the controller, it ensures that every console will have that compatibility.

Furthermore, since their is no other way to control the PS4 sufficiently, it ensures that users will always have a ps4 controller with the light bar, while the Wii can be used without the wiimote and the X1 can be used without the Kinect.

Regardless of whether the option to turn it off should exist or not, its inclusion is not only logical but cost-effective.

On the contrary, a controller without the light bar would split the userbase unnecessarily, drive up the cost of the camera since it would need the light bar for controller tracking, and render the light bar itself as an unnecessary peripheral thus shattering support for it. While only barely if all decreasing the cost, and increasing the battery life by barely 50%, something that can easily be mediated by buying a longer micro usb cable or battery pack if it concerns you.

I don't think anyone contests its existence.
The absence of an option to turn it off temporarily is just inexcusable.

I am curious, does the light thing take up extra battery power or not? Like, if you didn't have the light thing on all the time, would you get like 1hr+ more of gaming out of the controller or is it like only 10 minutes more? Cause if its only 10 minutes more, than sure, its worth it but if its 1hr+ more than I don't think its worth it from my perspective so if someone has the answer, please tell

I guess my personal issue with not being able to turn it off is that when I go to my friends house, he has a Cat and everytime I go to his house and play the ps4, the Cat thinks the Light means playtime and it always tries to catch the controller and its very annoying when I am playing any game cause it will not stop jumping on to my lap/head/sofa until it catches it multiple times. Sure, its not an issue for most people but it is an issue for me

the new update that sony released allowes people to dim the light bar this updates play time from 10h to 11h.30m, this means if you dim it you get and extra 1,30h of game play here is the link talking about it.

http://www.dualshockers.com/2014/05/04/ps4-1-7-dualshock-4-battery-life-increase-by-dimming-the-light-measured-for-all-settings/

I understand why they added it but there really is no excuss to not letting us turn it off. This is the second reason we want to be able to turn it off

http://www.dualshockers.com/2014/05/01/ps4s-dualshock-4-brightness-measured-on-each-1-7-setting-glare-on-screen-compared-in-pictures/