The December feature drop introduced a trio of smart features to better optimize the use of the Pixel. Adaptive charging, which charges your Pixel slowly over night to preserve battery health, is the most important, but there are important requirements to make it work.
Adaptive charging helps preserve battery health over time by dynamically controlling the charging speed of a Pixel device. Just plug in your phone at night, set an alarm and adaptive charging will work its magic.
This feature continuously charges your phone over several hours, instead of working as fast as possible to reach 100%. Since the device will not be used for a long time, there is little concern that users will be concerned about the time it takes to fully charge.
Available on Pixel 4 / XL, Pixel 4a, Pixel 4a (5G) and Pixel 5, adaptive charging will help extend the battery so that it can better maintain its original capacity during the period of possession of this device.
It can be manually activated / deactivated in Settings> Battery> Adaptive battery> Adaptive charging, while Google will notice when it is active at the bottom of the Environment / Screen always on. According to Google’s description, all users need to do is (1) charge at night and (2) have an alarm.
A Google support document provides details on both points. That is, your phone should start charging after 9:00 pm, while the alarm must be set between 5:10 am
Important: When you charge your phone after 9:00 pm, with an active alarm set to 5–10, your phone uses adaptive charging. Otherwise, your phone charges normally.
This should be in line with most people’s schedules, but there are always extreme cases, such as those who work at night and sleep during the day. However, it is also an obstacle for those who wake up very early or pass without an alarm on weekends.
As such, Google setting certain hours is a loss. For comparison, Apple’s optimized battery charging works more generally, predicting when an iOS device “will be connected to a charger for a long period of time”.
In theory, the fact that Google is explicitly aware of its alarm should allow the feature to work anytime, not just at night. Fortunately, Google expands Adaptive Charging to work with the programming of more Pixel owners in the future.
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