Android 12 looks to have tweaked Pixel Adaptive Charging so phones reach 100% closer to alarm

Abner Li | Aug 15 2021 - 2:07 am PT

With the December 2020 Feature Drop, Google made it so that your Pixel phone charges slowly at night to preserve battery health. Pixel users have had hit or miss experiences with Adaptive Charging, and Google now looks to have tweaked how it works on Android 12.

On Android 11, this overnight adaptive capability fast charges your Pixel to 80% and then slows down, thus preserving the health of the battery. However, for some, the slower speed still gets their phone to 100% several hours before they wake up at the set alarm time.

It’s clear that Google is being extremely cautious with this “smart” feature to avoid users waking up to a phone that isn’t fully charged. That would undoubtedly be a bad experience and comes as Google already limits Adaptive Charging to the Pixel 4 and newer while telling users that they must plug in after 9 p.m. and have an alarm between 5 and 10 a.m.

With Android 12, Pixel owners are noticing that the after-80%-charging is occurring much slower. A pair of reports on r/android_beta observed how devices are now reaching full charge 30 to 90 minutes before morning alarms go off. This is hours later than the current behavior. While noticed with Beta 4, the change might have been implemented earlier in the preview.

Adaptive Charging is now eight months old, and Google likely has garnered enough real-world usage data and end user feedback to fine-tune the capability with a focus on preserving even more battery health.

Be sure to reply in the comments below if you have noticed this improved Adaptive Charging behavior on Pixel phones running Android 12. You can check Settings > Battery > Battery Usage for when your device hits 100%.