As a part of the December Pixel Feature Drop, Google announced a new feature for select Pixel phones called Adaptive Charging. The idea for Adaptive Charging was to offer a solution that could help take care of your battery by charging it steadily over a long period of time rather than quickly.
I’m not sure there was a lot of confusion about how Adaptive Charging would work (we assumed it worked at night and trickle charged a phone), but a Google support page for the feature lays out exactly when your Pixel 4, Pixel 4a, or Pixel 5 will try and trigger it.
In order to use the new battery charging feature, you’ll first have to turn it on (Settings>Battery>Adaptive Battery). Once done, your phone will look for two things: 1) that you start charging your phone after 9PM and; 2) an active alarm is set between 5-10AM. If you don’t meet all of that, Google says, “Otherwise, your phone charges normally.”
So that’s obviously not awesome for those with alternate schedules or who don’t use alarms. If you work in the evening and sleep during the day or plan to wake up earlier than 5AM, Adaptive Charging will apparently never kick on. I’m the type who rarely sets an alarm, so it seems I’ll never benefit from this and won’t be able to take care of my battery.
Why Google can’t use all of the fancy AI they never shut-up about to predict when your sleep schedule is or that your battery is low and might be on a charger for a long time to trigger Adaptive Charging is odd. Hell, even a manual toggle would be nice to have rather than this limited scheduling.
// 9to5Google
Just use a slow charger at night, I’m sure most people have older charging bricks laying around. I have one near my bed and use that as the night time charger. For quick fill ups I use the higher wattage charger in the kitchen. Problem solved no need to think about it and no AI necessary. Would be nice if a trillion dollar company could figure out how to do it properly. But until they do my system works.
My rog phone has this and you just set whatever time you want. Why can’t Google get something this simple right? https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/264eb6efca4a140885384da636a5c511211340b4cfaa697f78256cc206091528.jpg
I feel like Pixels charge slow enough as it is that this won’t make much of a difference in terms of battery health even if it’s working properly.
I just unplug my phone when it gets to 90% but I think this feature will likely get more options in the near future.
Oh Google… you still suck at software, huh? At least something in 2020 is normal!
If Google sucks at software what does that say about all others which are substantially worse? Samsung? Apple?
You’re saying Google is the gold standard and they clearly are not. The used to be quite good. If you want to rank them #1, that’s your opinion but I don’t see them that way.
Google certainly isn’t perfect but considering the alternative the bar isn’t set very high.
In my opinion I’d rate them like this.
Google: B
Samsung: C-
Apple: D
I’d like to see a combination of a configurable charging limit that I could set to 80% with a battery sized such that 80% of a charge is enough to get through a typical day. Charging to 80% instead of 100% can triple or quadruple the number of charge cycles a battery lasts – enabling one battery to last the life of a phone. Of course if I were going to be off grid or otherwise want the full capacity of the battery, I could temporarily turn the limit off.
Trying to do this with utterly half-assed AI instead is so typical Google.
I just unplug my phone when it gets to like 85-90%. You can even get apps that will notify you when it reaches the desired charge level.
same here … and another great app to do such is BatteryGuru.
I try to keep mine charged to not drop below 20% and get it off the charger around 80-85%. And on that note I never use a quick/rapid charger on my devices unless really in a pinch and need some battery life back fast but even then I’ll just plug it into my portable PD battery pack.
Try the AccuBattery app, it gives battery health information as well.
This Google implementation is clearly meant for 9 to 5 types and should work well for them, at least until a future feature drop adds settings/options to it.
– “1) that you start charging your phone after 9PM and; 2) an active alarm is set between 5-10AM.”
It definitely should cover 9 to 5 types, which would be the vast majority I’m thinking. This is probably just a first iteration of this feature with the ability to tweak settings for it coming in a future feature drop.
How about in weekends? It shouldn’t take this long for a company as big as Google to figure out something of this caliber that again Apple even implemented before them. I even think old Sony phones were doing something similar. It’s just a shame or they do it on purpose to piss us off lol
Please, iPhone users often wait years for features Android users already have, this is nothing in comparison!
Sometimes it’s a good idea to implement a new feature in stages, otherwise you can end up with the buggy mess Apple foisted upon iOS/iPhone users.
You’re missing the point here. It’s not about waiting for “features” Google is known for AI and tout its prowesses everywhere, it’s just ironic that something so simple is not well implemented because non AI companies like Apple and Sony implemented it with no problem or stages like you’d call it.
You’re missing the point. There’s absolutely no good reason for Google to wait for AI to be implemented before introducing this feature as is. The vast majority of users can make great use of it as it is now, so why wait?
Google is already far ahead in AI, why do they also have to beat everyone on every single feature that can use it? There’s no urgency here, we have apps available for this already so obviously it’s a lower priority than say Assistant for example.
It seems to me that such criticism should be directed at Siri, a feature far more important than this.
Such a JANKY way to implement something. Why bother?
“You work second or third shift? Oh well…”