Google wants to help you cool down your overheating Pixel

Summary

• Android phones come with overheating management to prevent damage by reducing performance and disabling features when they get too hot.
• Pixel phones may soon introduce an “Adaptive Thermal” feature that alerts users and suggests actions to reduce phone temperature.
• If the phone temperature reaches extreme levels, Adaptive Thermal will shut down the Pixel to prevent damage.

All our favorite Android phones ship with built-in overheating management, allowing them to automatically turn off certain features to prevent damage when they get too hot. This typically includes reducing the CPU clock speed, turning the brightness down, disabling 5G, etc. In extreme cases, your phone might shut off until things cool down. While Pixel phones also pack such overheating measures, Google could soon introduce a new “Adaptive Thermal” feature, detailing what’s going on in the background and enabling you to take some actions to reduce your phone’s temperature manually.

In a report for Android Authority, Mishaal Rahman details finding references to the new Adaptive Thermal feature in the latest Device Health Services app v1.27 for Pixels. The strings suggest that a “pre-emergency” alert is triggered when your phone’s temperature reaches 49 degrees Celsius. A notification appears when this happens, saying your phone needs to cool down, and its performance might be negatively affected.

Tapping the “See care steps” button in the notification will open a dialog box detailing all the steps your phone is taking to help reduce heat. It also suggests some actions you can take, like moving the device away from direct sunlight, putting the phone in the open for improved airflow, and closing all battery-intensive apps.

Pixel will try to cool your phone down by temporarily limiting:

• Disabling 5G network, and more

How to help cool down your phone:

• Try avoiding direct sunlight

• Put your phone in the open for airflow

• Close any battery-intensive apps such as videos, games, and the camera

Adaptive Thermal will shut down your Pixel if its temperature keeps rising

If these above steps don’t help cool down the phone and its temperature reaches 52 degrees Celsius, Adaptive Thermal will put it in an “emergency” state. The report is unclear on what actions your Pixel will take in such scenarios. But if even these don’t help and the temperature crosses 55 degrees Celsius, the phone will shut itself down after showing a 30-second countdown.

None of the actions detailed in Adaptive Thermal are new. Your Pixel already has these overheating protections built-in. And if you have been using a smartphone for a few years now, you will know not to use it in direct sunlight when it is overheating. Still, the feature should help make the end user aware of what’s happening in the background on their phones when its temperatures start reaching uncomfortable levels.

Adaptive Thermal appears to be a work in progress, but it could launch with the public release of Android 15 or the upcoming Pixel 9 series later this year.