Google quietly implements new feature to extend Pixel battery life
No matter what kind of phone you own, there’s always a concern about longevity when it comes to battery life. We’ve seen phone makers and software engineers implement different features in an effort to keep your phones running for as long as possible. Google already includes one such feature in Adaptive Charging, but there’s another “new” feature available for Pixel owners. On a Google support page, XDA Developers discovered a feature that will allow Pixel phones to charge up to 80% before stopping.
Continuing to charge your phone to 100% on a regular basis is not great for the battery, and could result in you seeing diminished returns within a year of owning it. With this feature, your phone will be cap out at 80%, while a notification will appear stating “optimizing for battery health”. The aforementioned support page provides the following as a list of “conditions”:
- Continuous charge under high battery drain conditions, like game play.
- Continuous charge for 4 days or more.
Additionally, this isn’t something that is limited to newer Pixel devices like the Pixel 5 or the Pixel 4a. Instead, Google states that it is available for the Pixel 3 and later, as long as your device is running at least Android 11.
Unfortunately, Google does not offer any user-facing “switch” to turn this charging feature on or off. Instead, it provides the following steps if you want to stop “Optimizing for battery health”:
- Unplug your Pixel phone from its charger or remove it from Pixel Stand.
- Either restart your Pixel phone or wait about 10 minutes.
- When the feature is turned off, the notification disappears and the phone can charge to 100%.
- Tip: The next time your phone meets the above conditions, the feature automatically turns back on.
So it appears that there is no way to stop this permanently from being enabled, which really shouldn’t be too much of an issue. However, if you’ve been wondering why your phone won’t charge past 80%, you now have the answer.