Latest news with #BatteryHealth
Yahoo
04-07-2025
- Yahoo
New Google Battery Tool Severely Limits Older Pixel Phones
Google has introduced a controversial update for Pixel devices that limits battery performance through the Battery Health Assistance (BHA). This could result in smartphones becoming unusable without a battery replacement. In early 2025, Google rendered a number of otherwise functional Pixel 4a devices unusable with a surprising update. Now, the same fate could affect more, if not all, Pixel smartphones. A new battery tool delivered via update is particularly impacting older Google Pixel models. Data miners from the online magazine 'AndroidAuthority' have discovered traces in the system app 'Battery Health Assistance' (BHA) released with the Pixel 9a that bring significant restrictions for users. The battery application could soon appear on more Google Pixel smartphones and, in the worst case, lead to phones functioning poorly without a battery replacement. The purpose of the BHA is fundamentally sensible: The feature assesses the battery's health and adjusts basic system settings when the app detects battery wear. These measures are intended to extend the device's lifespan and protect the battery from damage. However, the settings made by the BHA come at the expense of usage time. They involve reducing battery capacity and charging speed. In other words, the phone takes longer to fully charge and lasts for shorter periods. Affected Pixel users currently have no way to counter this approach of the new battery tool—it's a mandatory update, and the function cannot be disabled without a battery replacement by a professional. This is made very clear in the leaked code lines. The description text states, among other things: 'Battery health monitoring can only be changed when the battery is replaced.' As mentioned earlier, the approach is reminiscent of the update Google delivered for the Pixel 4a in January 2025. Complaints mounted about previously perfectly functioning smartphones that were degraded to electronic waste after the update. The update significantly shortened the usage time of the phones. Google justified the patch at the time by stating that lithium-ion batteries are wear parts whose performance decreases over time. The internet giant offered a free battery replacement. However, the replacement only occurred as long as the battery supply lasted—those who were late had to choose between compensation and a discount in the Google Store. Read also: Battery Calibration Makes the Smartphone Significantly More Enduring Google currently offers the BHA only on the Pixel 9a. So far, no negative effects have been noticed on the relatively new smartphone. But the next older model to 'benefit' from this battery optimization is already determined. According to a recently published announcement from Google, the function will be available for the Google Pixel 6a starting July 8, 2025. This is the Lite version of the popular Pixel 6 family, following the Pixel 4a. The series has been on the market for four years now, and thus Google might target the batteries of the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro next. Following the example of the Pixel 4a, Google is again offering Pixel 6a owners a battery replacement or compensation. Starting July 21, 2025, they can have their device's battery replaced once for free. Alternatively, Google offers a discount code for purchasing a new smartphone in its own Google Store. Those who do not wish to use either option can receive compensation. However, the internet giant does not reveal exact amounts. The registration page is now online. Unfortunately, users have little recourse if the BHA is installed. Once on the smartphone, the app is difficult to remove from the system. Under normal circumstances, Android allows for a firmware update to install a previous system version and thus reverse harmful changes. However, Google has already blocked this path, as noted by the online magazine 'DroidLife.' Previous firmware versions have disappeared from official sources. The post New Google Battery Tool Severely Limits Older Pixel Phones appeared first on TECHBOOK.
Android Authority
02-07-2025
- Android Authority
Is mandatory battery throttling coming for more Pixels with poor battery health? (APK teardown)
Aamir Siddiqui / Android Authority TL;DR Google could potentially force Battery Health Assistance to remain enabled on Pixel phones with poor battery health. Users may not be able to change/disable the feature until they replace their phone's battery. Pixel 9a users have Battery Health Assistance already enabled and mandatory, even on new devices. Pixel smartphones have been a staple recommendation as great Android phones, but lately, we've been hearing more and more about their battery issues. Most battery issues seem to affect the Pixel A-series, making them harder to recommend. Google introduced Battery Health Assistance features with the Pixel 9a, letting the OS automatically (and forcibly) lower the phone's battery capacity and charging speed over time. Other Pixel devices can also optionally use the Battery Health Assistance features, but it seems Google could potentially mandate them for Pixel devices with low battery health. Authority Insights story on Android Authority. Discover You're reading anstory on Android Authority. Discover Authority Insights for more exclusive reports, app teardowns, leaks, and in-depth tech coverage you won't find anywhere else. An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release. Google's Settings Services app v1.1.0771997146 modifies some strings related to the Battery Health Assistance feature. These are the old strings: Code Copy Text Unavailable Battery health assistance is unavailable. These have been replaced with these new strings that contain updated language: Code Copy Text Unavailable until battery is replaced Battery health assistance cannot be changed until the battery is replaced. As your battery ages, you may notice slight changes in charging performance and battery capacity. Batteries are consumable components and replacement is recommended for aged batteries. At first glance, it may seem like Google could turn off the Battery Health Assistance feature if battery health drops below a certain point. However, such a move would be counterintuitive. Battery Health Assistance stabilizes battery performance and aging by gradually lowering the battery's maximum voltage in stages. However, you may not like it since it will also reduce battery life and increase charging time. If a user has the feature on for years and they finally reach a point where they absolutely need to replace the battery, disabling Battery Health Assistance would presumably deregulate their battery's maximum voltage back to original levels, which will only worsen the situation. The situation makes a bit more sense when you look closely at the wording. In the updated description, Google says, 'battery health assistance cannot be changed until the battery is replaced' (emphasis added). This points to a possibility where Google effectively forces Battery Health Assistance features to stay enabled once battery health falls below certain levels. Users may be unable to change the state of Battery Health Assistance (i.e., disable it) until they change their phone's battery. This makes more sense and aligns with behaviours seen with the Pixel 4a's 'update of death' and Pixel 9a's compulsorily throttled battery and charging speeds. Google hasn't yet announced this change to Battery Health Assistance, so it remains to be seen what they have in mind. Given the spate of battery-related incidents in the Pixel A-series, it wouldn't be surprising to see Battery Health Assistance mandated once battery health falls below a certain level. We'll keep you updated when we learn more. Got a tip? Talk to us! Email our staff at Email our staff at news@ . You can stay anonymous or get credit for the info, it's your choice.
Android Authority
09-05-2025
- Android Authority
There's a dark side to 7 years of Android updates, and we're already starting to see it
Robert Triggs / Android Authority News that the Pixel 8 series won't get Android 16's new Battery Health feature has stirred more outrage than you'd expect for such a mundane addition. Then again, perhaps it's because it's so seemingly rudimentary that it's hard to fathom why older Pixels can't or won't receive a heads-up on how healthy their battery is. Whatever the reason, it's not a great look for a smartphone series that prides itself on trailblazing long-term handset support. I wouldn't blame you for wondering whether seven years of promised updates are all they're cracked up to be. But as we've said before, long-term support doesn't necessarily guarantee access to every little feature — a readily apparent reality, even for phones barely a couple of years old. In some sense, this is a problem of expectation management. By promising the earth, brands have set consumers up for inevitable disappointment. When you see a feature hyped up for Android 16, One UI 8, Oxygen OS, or what have you, but it's missing when the update finally rolls around to your older handset, you're bound to be annoyed. This is especially true when a missing feature 'feels' like it should work, or worse, can be proven to work on an older model. Could Google have better communicated why the Pixel 8 won't support the new battery health feature? Absolutely. But is it feasible for every brand to detail every missing or diluted feature for every phone over their five, six, or seven-year lifecycle? Of course not. Do 7 years of updates still matter even if features are withheld from older devices? 0 votes Of course NaN % Nope NaN % Hardware ages faster than software Rita El Khoury / Android Authority Unfortunately, smartphones can't always receive predictable, 'just works' updates like laptops and PCs. Under the hood, there's a range of bespoke hardware, each with quite varying capabilities, making maintaining new features for old hardware more of a hassle and less economical. From your phone's graphics chip and modem to the ICs that charge your battery, various aspects of phone design change year by year, meaning that backporting features is not a given. Even Apple couldn't bring Apple Intelligence to the iPhone 15 just a year after its launch. It's likely a similar case with Google's Battery Health feature — it probably depends on a newer chip that older Pixels lack. Looking ahead, the Tensor G5 inside the Pixel 10 is expected to support ray-tracing, and we certainly can't expect Google to bring that feature back to older phones that don't sport the necessary hardware. Still, there are plenty of hardware-dependent upgrades that can be ported between handsets, ranging from the camera to AI, and more. Google has helped phone software run for longer at the expense of low-level hardware updates. Thankfully, Google has made Android feature upgrades easier in recent years by isolating low-level code, allowing more features to be updated independently of the Linux kernel. OS upgrades should be able to include new camera processing capabilities, updates to audio/video codecs, and even AI features for their full seven years, for example. As long as it can interface with existing hardware, support is possible. However, abstraction has a limit; some features can't be patched in without more work, even if there's underlying hardware support. For example, Android 14's low-latency camera APIs almost certainly require a low-level kernel update, as did the flashlight brightness API and Memory-Tagging-Extension support in Android 13. Joe Maring / Android Authority Unfortunately, Google's move to a three-year kernel upgrade cycle with the Longevity GRF program means that low-level upgrades might become even more spaced out, especially for brands that rely on third-party processors. In other words, features that require a brand new software interface with low-level hardware are even less likely to arrive in future OS upgrades than those that make 'simple' software changes. While seven years of updates means we can keep our handsets running longer, the trade-off is that the rules for kernel updates are a bit more relaxed, meaning some features can go AWOL from older phones. Thankfully, most user-facing OS features should be able to dodge this issue, but there are no guarantees over such a long period of time, especially in innovative areas like AI. How to sell more phones in the age of long support C. Scott Brown / Android Authority Galaxy S25 Ultra (left) and Galaxy S24 Ultra The less talked about dark side of seven-year update pledges is their economic viability. Even if a $799-$1,199 phone feels like it should buy seven years of updates, you can bet no one's squirrelling away cash in a developer fund to cover engineer salaries in 2032. Much like the social security balancing act, the R&D and sale of new handsets almost certainly support developing features and updates for existing models. Ironically, the promise of long-term support also boosts the resale market — yet brands see little to no profit from second-hand sales, even as they tout sustainability as a core value. As such, there's a delicate balancing act: keep old phones relevant without cannibalizing new sales and choking off the funding that powers future updates. No one's squirrelling away engineer salaries for 2032, long-term updates require new sales. Though 'planned obsolescence' tends to spark outrage, it seems inevitable that Apple, Google, and Samsung must reserve some features to attract new customers. At what point can a brand fairly say, 'Hey, you want the new stuff, you have to buy the new phone?' Ideally, I'd say features should keep coming until the hardware can't keep up, but with sluggish innovation, that's more idealistic than realpolitik. Even so, omitting One UI 7 features from the two-year-old Galaxy S23 series seems punitively short. Fair support and subtle arm-twisting for an upgrade seem incompatible — but honestly, you probably can't have one without the other. Between expectation management, hardware limitations, and the economic reality, delivering seven years of updates is a far darker business than the marketing suggests. I suspect we'll see plenty more stories like the Pixel Battery Health fiasco as the upgrade counter ticks on. In the end, it's a timeless reminder: buy a phone for what it does today, not for what it might do tomorrow.
Android Authority
07-05-2025
- Android Authority
Google's latest Pixel decision is one of the most annoying yet
Robert Triggs / Android Authority C'mon, Google. What are you thinking? This is the first thought that came to mind when I saw the news about Android 16's Battery Health feature. As the name suggests, Battery Health provides a glanceable overview of your device's battery health, showing its current capacity at any given time. Batteries naturally degrade over time, and especially for older devices, knowing how a battery is aging is crucial information. Unfortunately, we now know a lot of Pixel owners won't get this feature at all. Google recently confirmed that Battery Health only works on the Pixel 8a and newer phones, leaving the main Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, Pixel 7 series, Pixel 6 series, and all other older Pixels left in the dust. It's a mind-boggling decision, and, arguably, one of the most annoying I've seen Google make in a while. What do you think about Google limiting Battery Health to newer Pixels? 0 votes It's ridiculous! There's no reason older Pixels shouldn't get it. NaN % It's annoying, but not the end of the world. NaN % I'm fine with it. NaN % Why the Battery Health fiasco is so ridiculous Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority Before we go any further, I want to make one thing very clear. It's OK for companies to restrict certain features to newer/more powerful devices. We see this all the time in the Android world, and usually, it's done for an apparent reason. For example, the Samsung Galaxy A36 doesn't have all of Samsung's Galaxy AI features. Why? Because its lower-end Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 chipset simply can't handle all of them. Google has had to do this with its Pixel phones before, too. The Pixel 9a's limited RAM means it has a pared-down Gemini Nano AI model, resulting in missing features like Pixel Screenshots and Call Notes. It's annoying, but it makes sense why those things aren't there. What's not OK, however, is when basic functionality is withheld from phones with no good explanation as to why. That's what we're seeing with this Battery Health fiasco. Battery Health is about as simple as software features get. In fact, it's barely a feature at all and really just a new option in the settings app. The entire Battery Health page consists of the following: your phone's current battery capacity (and whether it's normal or not), articles about battery health, and your charging optimization settings. That's it. As a reminder, Google says Battery Health isn't coming to older Pixels 'due to product limitations.' While I don't want to say Google is outright lying, I'm struggling to see what 'limitations' are keeping Battery Health exclusive to the Pixel 8a and Pixel 9 series. I'm struggling to see what 'limitations' are keeping Battery Health exclusive to the Pixel 8a and Pixel 9 series. For context, Google has been working on Battery Health since as early as December 2023. That's when the feature first appeared in Android 14 QPR2 Beta 2, and it's the same year the Pixel 7a, Pixel 8, and Pixel 8 Pro were released. If Google was testing Battery Health when those were the newest phones in its lineup, what gives for none of them being compatible with the feature now? And if the Pixel 8, Pixel 8 Pro, and Pixel 8a all have the exact same chip, why is the cheaper Pixel 8a supported but the flagship Pixel 8 series isn't? It doesn't make any sense. Robert Triggs / Android Authority Pixel 8 Pro Adding to the frustration is that a feature like Battery Health is most useful on phones that are a few years old. Pixel 9 owners probably don't need to worry about their device's battery health quite yet, but someone with a Pixel 8, Pixel 7, or Pixel 6 could absolutely benefit from that information. Yet, for whatever reason, Google doesn't seem to agree. It's all the more perplexing when you look at the iPhone. Apple added its own Battery Health feature in 2018 with iOS 11. It works exactly as Battery Health in Android 16 does, and it's compatible with iPhones as far back as the iPhone 6 — a phone released over a decade ago. A bad look, no matter how you slice it Robert Triggs / Android Authority If you recall, this is the second time in less than a week we've spotted a company withholding software features without a justified reason to back it up. Late last week, Galaxy S23 users found that their One UI 7 update was missing several features available on the S24 and S25, despite said features supposedly running fine on the 'old' S23 phones. It's a bit ironic that Samsung and Google — the two Android brands promising seven years of updates for many of their phones — are the ones that find themselves in this situation. That update policy looks great on paper, but when one- and two-year-old phones are missing features they shouldn't be, how much does that matter? Paul Jones / Android Authority Pixel 8a Of course, Battery Health is just a small part of Android 16. From what we've seen so far, Android 16's other hallmark features — including its new blurred UI, Material 3 Expressive design language, and quirky Bubble Bar multitasking — will be available on all supported Pixel phones without a problem. But if all of those features will presumably work just fine, what's stopping Battery Health from being there? If there is a technical limitation that makes it impossible for Battery Health to run on the Pixel 8 series and other older models, fine! But if that's the case, I think Google needs to explain that limitation. From the outside looking in, this smells like a ripe case of planned obsolescence, and true or not, that's not a good look to have.
Digital Trends
06-05-2025
- Digital Trends
Pixel 9 and 8a owners will get a handy new battery feature in Android 16
Google has hinted at a dedicated Battery Health menu since Android 14 QPR2 Beta 2, more than two years ago — and now the feature is finally available for select users on Android 16 Beta 3. That's great news, but only if you have one of the most recent Pixel models. The feature is only coming to the Pixel 9 series and the Pixel 8a; even the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro (launched in late 2023) are ineligible. Google confirmed this in an issue tracker thread: 'The Battery Health Indicator feature is currently supported in Beta 3 on Pixel 8a and Pixel 9 products including 9 Pro Fold. Due to product limitations, this feature will not be available on older in-market Pixel devices.' Recommended Videos It appears that only devices launched in 2024 or later will work with this feature, although Google hasn't stated a clear reason why. Fans speculate the 'product limitations' mentioned in the thread could refer to an inability to pull battery cycle counts from older models. The reasoning is still cloudy, especially since the Pixel 8 and the Pixel 8a have essentially the same battery type (lithium-ion), just of slightly different capacities. Both the Pixel 8 and 8a have the same Tensor G3 chip, too. From a hardware perspective, there's little difference between the two devices, so Google's decision to only bring the feature to the Pixel 8a has left some fans incensed. One user on Reddit said the feature had previously worked in an earlier beta: '[Pixel] 6 Pro here. It worked in a beta before then they said it was only meant for 8a.' For reference, the Apple iPhone has had a Battery Health feature since 2017, and it retroactively applied to devices as far back as 2014 (including the iPhone 6). This restriction could change in the future; the Battery Health menu is only available to anyone participating in the Android 16 Beta 3, so it hasn't been released to the public yet. Once Android 16 is widely released (scheduled for Q2 2025), this feature will likely apply to all devices running the OS. Google might announce more at Google I/O 2025. Please enable Javascript to view this content
