One of the more useful iOS features that you don’t get on Android is a battery health screen, which shows the maximum capacity of the battery as a percentage, relative to how it was when the phone was new. This provides a clear idea of how much your phone’s battery has degraded, and it’s something that might soon be added to Android too.
Android Authority and Nail Sadykov (the editor of the Google News Telegram group) have found a ‘battery health’ screen hidden away in the Android 14 QPR2 (Quarterly Platform Release 2) beta 2 update.
The screen isn’t actually live in this beta, so they had to jump through some hoops to activate it, and even then it doesn’t currently show your phone’s battery health. But within the code they found mention that this screen will show the “estimated percentage of charge the battery can currently hold compared to when it was new.”
So in other words, very much like what iOS can do now. It’s not clear exactly when this feature will launch, but its presence in Android software suggests it probably will be coming soon.
Android Authority speculates that the feature might land with Android 15, and that it might initially be exclusive to Pixel phones, but that remains to be seen.
There’s also a chance that it will never launch, and could simply be abandoned, but we’d think that’s unlikely, especially as Google seems to have been building towards this. After all, the latest Pixel Feature Drop adds a ‘battery information’ screen, which shows the cycle count of the battery (that being how many times it has been fully charged and discharged), and its manufacture date.
Prior to that, Google gave third-party app developers access to some battery APIs as part of Android 14, which allowed for apps that could estimate battery health. So similar to what Google seems to be building into Android, but probably less accurate, and requiring a third-party app.
An important feature
Adding a battery health screen could be enormously beneficial for anyone who keeps their phone for a long time – which is all the more viable now that Google is promising seven years of software updates for the Pixel 8 line.
After all, the battery is likely to wear out faster than the rest of the hardware, so may need replacing, and this tool would give you a clearer idea of just how degraded your phone’s battery is.
It would also help you tell whether your battery is actually heavily degraded, or whether there are software issues causing a reduction in life. So this battery health screen could be one of the best features of Android 15.
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Alex Mitchell is your go-to expert for all things mobile. With a passion for the latest smartphones, apps, and mobile innovations, Alex provides in-depth reviews, insightful analyses, and breaking news about the ever-evolving world of mobile technology. Stay connected with Alex to navigate the fast-paced realm of mobile devices.
