Google is apparently working on a new feature to help Pixel phone batteries last longer, and make them more useful for a longer period of time, for users who tend to stick to their phones for years on end.
The new battery health assistance feature will reportedly adjust the maximum voltage of a Pixel’s battery according to the number of cycles the battery has been through. As per reports, this adjustment will kick in starting at 200 cycles and will continue gradually all the way up to 1000 charge cycles.
This should help Pixel phones’ batteries last longer and allow users to continue using their Pixel smartphones for multiple years before requiring an upgrade or a battery replacement.
As per an APK teardown by 9to5Google (link), the new Settings Service app on the Play Store contains strings that describe the new feature. The folks over at 9to5Google found descriptions of the feature including the following text that will show up when the feature is enabled by default:
“Battery health assistance helps manage long term battery health and performance. As your battery ages, you may notice slight changes in charging performance and battery capacity. Batteries are consumable components that age over time and last fewer hours between charges. Replacement is recommended for aged batteries with reduced capacity.”
The first phones to get the new Battery Health Assistance feature are going to be the Pixel 9a devices, where the feature will reportedly be enabled by default and with no option to turn it off. Older phones, however, will likely get this as an optional feature that users can choose to turn on or off.
The battery health assistance feature is currently not live in the latest Android 16 betas. However, it might be enabled with the stable release of Android 16.
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