Earlier this week, Adaptive Charging was updated with a status notification and a one-time off button. In the process, Google might have updated Pixel Adaptive Charging to no longer require an alarm to work.
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This smart feature aims to “help preserve long-term battery life” by not reaching a 100% charge until you wake up. Your Pixel will hold at 80% and use your morning alarm to determine when to go all the way so it’s ready before you unplug.
Important: When you charge your phone between 9 PM and 4 AM with an active alarm set for 3–10 AM, your phone may use Adaptive charging. This feature must be turned on for your phone to use it. Learn how to set an alarm.
At the beginning (2020), Google set the alarm window between 5 and 10 a.m. It was later changed to 3-10 a.m. to presumably accommodate more sleep schedules. Even then, people did not like how they had to manually set an alarm and that the Pixel couldn’t just figure out their schedule automatically.
The alarm requirement appears to have changed as we’ve encountered Adaptive Charging working without one set. I don’t use my Pixel 7 to wake me up in the morning (Pixel Watch user instead), but Adaptive Charging is now active.
For the first time, I’m seeing my phone hold at 80% with “Adaptive Charging – Full by 7:00 AM” appearing at the bottom of the lockscreen. The status notification also confirms that the battery will be full by 7 a.m.
Notably, that is around when I usually wake up on weekdays. There is no active alarm on my Pixel 7 and Bedtime Mode has not been set. (To rule out my phone getting the time from the Pixel Watch, that on-wrist alarm is set up for 7:30 a.m., and there’s currently no alarm sync between the two devices.)
Top comment by Martin
I'd prefer if Google prioritized a simple on/off switch for adaptive charging. Let me decide that I want to cap my battery at 80% anytime I charge until I say otherwise.
I work from home, so I only need the phone over 100% when traveling for an extended period.
It’s possible that 7 a.m. was chosen by Google as a default time for those without alarms. The other explanation is that Pixel phones are now automatically figuring out when you start using your device in the morning and setting that as the target time to automatically trigger Adaptive Charging.
Update: The description for Adaptive Charging has replaced “Uses alarm to completely charge by wake-up” to “Activated based on your cycle.”
This new approach could let Google enable Adaptive Charging for those that have different sleep schedules, as well as those that don’t use their Pixel for alarms.
We’ll be reaching out to Google tomorrow to confirm how Adaptive Charging now works on Pixel. The company has yet to update its support documentation, with alarms still listed as a requirement. Meanwhile, we’re now seeing the status notification after not seeing it a few days ago. It’s unclear how these updates are rolling out.
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