Google Pixel phones aren’t strangers to bugs. In the last year alone, Pixel smartphones have been plagued by several, including a concerning 911 bug and a bug causing alarms to not function. Many of the identified bugs are proactively fixed by the company; however, others, like the speakerphone bug on Pixel 9 and Pixel 10 phones, remain unfixed due to the company not having enough information about them.
Interestingly, other weird behavior identified by Pixel owners sometimes ends up not being a malfunction. Reports about one such “non-bug” related to battery recently started showing up in online Pixel communities and forums, per PiunikaWeb.
While many of the reports related to this “battery bug” online are relatively recent, a comment made by a Google employee on the Android issue tracker indicates that the company had already known about the “bug,” and called it a non-issue and “intended” behavior. Here’s all you need to know about this “bug,” and what you can expect on your Pixel smartphone.
What is this Pixel battery bug?
As per the bug report in Android issue tracker and various posts on Reddit, Pixel phone owners with “Limit to 80%” option turned on in their charging optimization setting are seeing the phone’s charging speed reduce drastically after the battery reaches 77%. After reaching 77%, the phone can take 30-45 minutes to reach 80% charge level, which many find strange.
For those unaware of this feature, Google includes “charging optimization” as one of the settings on Pixel phones to ensure your battery remains in good health for a long time. You can choose from “Adaptive Charging” and “Limit to 80%” as part of charging optimization. While “Adaptive Charging” only completes the charging process when it thinks you’re about to unplug in an effort to avoid keeping the phone at 100% for a long time, the “Limit to 80%” option simply stops charging once the battery is charged 80%.
Google seemingly made a change to the phone charging speeds for those with the “Limit to 80%” option in the March feature drop for Pixel phones, but it was first noticed by a Pixel 9 owner in the beta version of this software and reported in the Android Issue Tracker. Once the March update was released to the wider public, more reports appeared on Reddit and in other forums. Notably, the updated charging behavior isn’t limited to a single Pixel phone; instead, owners of most Pixel phones are complaining about it.
Not a bug, but a possible fix may be inbound
The battery bug reports were investigated by Google’s product and engineering teams, as per the Android Issue Tracker, and the company noted that this behavior is part of the “Limit to 80%” feature. “This behavior is related to the 80% Charge Limit feature. In the current software build, the device charges at normal speeds until it reaches approximately 77%, at which point it transitions to a lower current to reach the final 80% limit,” a Google employee wrote in response to the bug report.
However, they added that the company was looking to optimize this behavior, so there’s a possibility that a future Android update can improve the charging speed between 77% and 80%. It remains unclear when this improvement might happen.
If you’re not appreciating this change, you have the option to turn off “charging optimization” entirely in the meantime, or you can choose to go with “Adaptive Charging,” which will also keep your phone’s battery in good health.
