(Credit: Iyaz Akhtar/PCMag)
Google is preparing to launch a feature intended to improve the long-term health of Pixel phone batteries, 9to5Google reports.
Announced earlier this year, the Battery Health Assistant setting will automatically “adjust the battery’s maximum voltage in stages that start at 200 charge cycles and continue gradually until 1,000 charge cycles to help stabilize battery performance and aging.”
Once available, the feature will also adjust the charging speed based on the modified voltage and reduce the battery’s runtime, Google says in a support page.
When Google announced the feature for the Pixel 9a in March, the company said it would also come to older Pixel phones. After months without an update, the feature has now been spotted in the latest Settings Services update through an APK teardown.
While Google hasn’t specified which other Pixel models will support the feature, APK teardown specialist AssembleDebug was able to activate it on a Pixel 9 handset.
On the Pixel 9a, the feature would be enabled by default and can’t be turned off. On other Pixel models, users will have the option to turn it on or off in Settings > Battery.
Batteries on the Pixel 8a or later can last for 1,000 charge cycles, and the Battery Health Assistant appears to be designed to help them reach that mark. A charge cycle “is the number of times the battery has completed a full discharge and recharge of the battery,” Google explains in a separate support page.
The feature has yet to appear on Android 16 Beta 4.1 and QPR1 Beta 1, but it could appear with an update later this year.
In PCMag's battery tests, the Pixel 9a lasted 13 hours and 15 minutes, a 60-minute improvement over the Pixel 8a and a 90-minute improvement over the Pixel 9. "It's surprising to see the cheapest Pixel supersede its peers here," our mobile expert Iyaz Akhtar said at the time, though he noted that "the iPhone 16e is on another level at 21 hours and 39 minutes."