Tuesday, November 19, 2024

Google is Finally Adding This Essential Battery Feature to Pixel Phones

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To preserve the battery health of your smartphone, it’s better to charge your device to 80% and unplug it. However, manually doing so is a major hassle. That is exactly why several OEMs let you limit your smartphone’s charging capacity to 80%. Well, not Pixel phones. However, that’s about to change as Pixels are finally getting the much-awaited battery charging limit feature.

First spotted in Android 15 QPR1, a new Limit to 80% option can be seen in Settings > Battery > Charging optimization, right alongside the regular Adaptive Charging. Sadly, this feature didn’t make it to the stable Android 15 (review) that landed on Pixel phones just last month.

But, there’s some good news, as a Telegram user named @SlimRock has shared some screenshots with Android Authority, showcasing the feature on the stable Android 15 AP3A.241105.007 build. However, Android Authority didn’t get the feature on their Pixel 8 Pro after having updated it to the latest November build, and neither did we get it on ours. It might just be a gradual rollout.

But, what baffles me is how Pixels still don’t have the functionality, primarily because almost every other OEM offers it. For example, OnePlus phones got the feature as “Optimized Charging” back in 2020 itself. The feature is now called the Charging Limit feature on OxygenOS 15.

Image Credit: SlimRock/ Telegram via Android Authority

On the other hand, Realme phones got it with the Wise Charging feature on Realme UI 4.0 this year. Meanwhile, Samsung phones got it as a new “Battery Protection” feature with OneUI 6.1 earlier this year. Motorola too has been letting its users enjoy the feature for years now, calling it “Overcharge Protection.”

So, it’s kind of surprising to see the creators of Android themselves making it late to the party, especially since it’s a pretty basic feature. While I do understand that Google doesn’t provide blazing-fast charging speeds on Pixels (which it should) and doesn’t have to worry about the battery wearing out faster, this is still a very elementary feature that every user can benefit from. Especially since even Apple introduced the “Charge Limit” feature with the iPhone 15 lineup.

Anyway, here’s hoping that other helpful Android 15 features like Notification Cooldown, and Adaptive Screen Timeout gradually arrive like the Pixel battery charging limit feature. As they say, better late than never. Even better if they don’t limit it to the newer Pixel phones (yes, I’m looking at you Apple).

I’d like to hear your thoughts on this. What do you think about it all? Let us know in the comments down below!

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