TL;DR
- Android’s long-awaited Battery Health menu has arrived in Android 16 Beta 3, but only for the Pixel 9 series and the Pixel 8a.
- Google has confirmed that older Pixels, including the not-so-old Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, will not receive this feature.
- The decision is due to unspecified “product limitations,” leaving aging device users without means for native battery diagnostics.
Determining a phone’s battery health is an important diagnostic step that helps users understand why their phone’s battery is running out so quickly. iPhones have long featured a dedicated Battery Health menu in the iOS Settings app, making it easy to check how much the battery has degraded. Google has also been spotted working on a Battery Health section for Pixel smartphones for a while now. If you were crossing your fingers to receive this feature on your older Pixel, there’s bad news: The Battery Health menu will not be coming to older Pixel devices.
Google has been working on a Battery Health menu since as far back as Android 14 QPR2 Beta 2, which was released in December 2023. More than two years later, the feature finally became available to beta users with the launch of Android 16 Beta 3.
At the time, though, it wasn’t immediately clear which Pixel devices had the new Battery Health menu. We saw reports mainly from Pixel 9 series users and also for the Pixel 8a, but strangely, not for the Pixel 8, Pixel 8 Pro, or even older Pixels.
Google has now confirmed that this is intentional behavior. As spotted by Reddit user azmeen0, Google has replied in the Google Issue Tracker that the Battery Health Indicator feature will not be available on older Pixels.
Status: Won’t Fix (Infeasible)
Thank you for reporting this. 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.
While the comment is within the context of Android 16 Beta 3, the forward-facing language indicates that we won’t see the feature come to Pixels beyond the Pixel 9 series and the Pixel 8a at this stage. For reference, the Pixel 8a was released in May 2024, while the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro were released in October 2023. Meanwhile, the iPhone 6 from 2014 received the Battery Health menu with its iOS 11.3 update in September 2017.
We’re still waiting for the Battery Health menu to arrive for all Pixel 9 series and Pixel 8a users with the Android 16 stable release. Google has had over seven years of notice on this feature, and its one-year-old flagships will still miss out. Some Android OEMs have added this feature to their skins, but it is available only on newer hardware, which is a big shame. People using older hardware have no choice but to explore alternative ways to check their phone’s battery health.
