Android 13 Beta 3: Pixel Battery widget can now get much smaller

Abner Li | Jun 8 2022 - 9:35 pm PT

The Pixel’s Battery widget became easier to find with Android 12 QPR3, and Android 13 will allow the homescreen object to take up less space.

Update 6/9: These updates are part of version 1.1.0.452445739.sr of Settings Services, which is already rolling out to Android 12.

On Android 12, the Battery widget’s smallest configuration is 2×2 with a lot of empty space if it’s only showing the charge level of your Pixel phone, which is the case most of the time. Beta 2 of Android 13 made it so that the percentage bar resizes to the available area.

Android 13 Beta 3 today lets you resize the Pixel’s Battery widget down to a tile-like 2×1, while there’s a particularly nifty 5×1 configuration that can show three items at once – phone, left, and right earbud – in a compact, as well as cute, manner. At 4×1, a pair of Pixel Buds are shown jointly alongside your mobile device.

This particular design update makes the Android widget less generic and better fit with Material You’s resizable widget nature. The look might evolve further before launch, but it’s solid as is. (Hopefully, Wear OS devices like the Pixel Watch can appear there in the future.)

Android 13 is scheduled to see one more beta next month and a stable release sometime after that. This week’s stable update makes it easier to find and place Battery from the Widgets list as it’s no longer under the rather vague “Settings Services.”