For years, Android users had to rely on third-party apps and shady fortune tellers to get some more information on one of the most important pieces of hardware in their phones – the battery.
Soon, there could be something to ease that pain and it could be Android 15, according to Android expert Mishaal Rahman and Android Authority.
He outlines three major points, here they are (paraphrased):
- A phone’s battery capacity is naturally lost over time;
- Android will soon give information on your battery’s remaining capacity;
- The new battery health stats could also tell if your battery has been replaced.
Even if you treat your device and battery gently, even if you take precautions and don’t abuse your phone – that still doesn’t matter, as sooner or later, you’ll need a battery change. If you’re particularly lucky, it’ll be “later”.Batteries, like every other tech piece out there, tend to degrade over time. Their maximum charge capacity is reduced and your screen-on-time is drastically reduced. Or (and) your battery starts to behave abnormally, causing your phone sudden blackouts and whatnot.
There’s a light in the tunnel: “Android 14 laid the initial groundwork for the OS to track battery health information, but Android 15 could actually bring that information in front of users”, says Mishaal in his report.
There’s a new “battery information” page under Settings > About phone that is part of the Pixel Feature Drop for December 2023. This page shows the manufacture date and cycle count of the device’s battery. Details are obtained through new APIs introduced in Android 14.
There are more battery health details: the date of first use, charging policy, charging status, and state of health. The state of health is particularly interesting because it’s an estimate of the battery’s current full charge capacity, expressed as a percentage relative to the battery’s rated capacity. For example, if your Pixel 8 battery’s state of health is measured at 90%, that means its remaining full charge capacity is estimated to be about 4118mAh (compared to the rated 4575mAh).
The Settings app currently doesn’t show the battery state of health – like an iPhone does – but that’s set to change in the future. Google will also expose more battery-related information like whether the device has an “unsupported”, “original” or “replaced” battery inside.
