this post was submitted on 08 May 2025
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TL;DR

  • Android’s long-awaited Battery Health menu has arrived in Android 16 Beta 3, but only for the Pixel 9 series and the Pixel 8a.
  • Google has confirmed that older Pixels, including the not-so-old Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, will not receive this feature.
  • The decision is due to unspecified β€œproduct limitations,” leaving aging device users without means for native battery diagnostics.
top 20 comments
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[–] limerod@reddthat.com 25 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Interesting that the 8a will get this feature. But, pixel 8 and 8 pro won't.

[–] sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al 18 points 1 day ago

The 8 isn't even two years old.

[–] dumblederp@aussie.zone 14 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Pretty disappointed with Google dropping support of their own products like this.

[–] Zoomboingding@lemmy.world 3 points 20 hours ago

They literally sold the 8 on the promise of 8 years of support

[–] 7empest@beehaw.org 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The cycle of planned obsolescnce continues

[–] nosebleed@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Been really happy with support and updates from Graphene. Pretty simple nontechnical installation most users are capable of and no dodgy rooting/unlocking required. All supported officially with pixel line of phones. My banking apps etc all work fine because of this.

[–] 7empest@beehaw.org 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I am buying a second hand 6a tomorrow, and was thinking of installing graphene or lineageos on it.

[–] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I run 5's with Lineage. Because they're so cheap I have 3, one for testing, one as a hot spare.

Still cost less than a new phone.

[–] 7empest@beehaw.org 1 points 1 day ago

Yeah the 6a will be my spare to my 7 pro

[–] dumblederp@aussie.zone 1 points 1 day ago

I'm still rocking my pixel 5 because it works and the battery lasts me a full day if not more. I should probably look at loading graphene onto it.

[–] fayoh@sopuli.xyz 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I bought the 8 pro in part for the promise of 7 years of updates. πŸ˜•

I understand not everything can come to old phones, maybe it depends on a battery management system feature that is missing in the 8 hw? Otherwise I'm disappointed for sure.

Edit: the missing hw was already in the comments.... Read all comments before saying something πŸ€¦β€β™‚οΈ

[–] ChildlessBambinoo@mastodon.green 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

@limerod apparently it is a hardware limited feature. The original 8 doesn't have it

[–] limerod@reddthat.com 4 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Maybe, google should've included the necessary hardware if it was going to bring the feature to pixel down the line. 7 yrs of updates with missing features does not inspire confidence in them.

[–] HejMedDig@feddit.dk 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

So you would like them to put hardware into a model, made before they decided to add said hardware? So how about any new hardware added in the next Pixel, should they also have put that into previous Pixels?

Software updates will always have hardware limitations

[–] limerod@reddthat.com 3 points 1 day ago

Pixel 8 did not get the multi model Gemini update simply because it lacked the additional RAM needed for the LLM. Its the same with this feature. They brought battery health and charge counter in android 14.

They could've bought this to pixel phones if google did not skimp on the hardware.

Software updates will always have hardware limitations

I know but, since they were going to work on this feature and had starting with android 14. It does not make sense to skimp on it for a year old hardware. Same with the RAM limitation on the pixel 8.

[–] smeg@feddit.uk 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If they hadn't thought of the idea until say a year ago then it's not like they can go back in time or recall everyone's phones to install a piece of hardware

[–] limerod@reddthat.com 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

They have been working on the battery health feature for a time. Android 14 brought the charge counter to supported phones. It would be unreasonable to say they did not know.

[–] smeg@feddit.uk 2 points 1 day ago

Without knowing what these "product limitations" actually are then I think we're just arguing hypotheticals

@limerod they took a leaf out of Apple's playbook with this decision

[–] DuskyRo@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Is this different from battery information?

On my LineageOS Xiaomi 12 Pro