The Pixel Adaptive Charge feature brings some useful changes

Adaptive charging on Google Pixel 6
(Image credit: Namerah Saud Fatmi / Android Central)

What you need to know

  • Google has seemingly rolled out a sneaky Adaptive Charging notification on Pixels.
  • This notification displays when your phone will be fully charged in the morning and a quicker way of turning it off if you don't want it for the night.
  • Pixels have received another quiet update which removes the alarm requirement for Adaptive Charging, as well.

Google appears to have snuck in an improvement to its battery-saving feature, Adaptive Charging. A user on Reddit posted a quick screenshot and some information regarding the recent appearance of a notification for Pixel's Adaptive Charging (via 9to5Google). The "Adaptive Charging is on" notification offers an explanation to this user stating their battery will be full by 8 am and that it will charge steadily until then to prolong the battery's health.

This is pretty much in line with how Google's Adaptive Charging for Pixels is intended to work. The function will aim to reduce the amount of time your phone spends in the critical range of 80-100% charge to help aid the strain the internal cells receive before rapidly reaching its max charge before you wake.

A user's screenshot of the new Adaptive Charging notification on their Pixel.

(Image credit: Reddit)

The Redditor also noted a new notification for the battery health-focused tool and a "turn off once" option now appears with it. If your sleep schedule is going to be different that night, this option to turn off adaptive charging might come in handy. However, if you're just not satisfied with it entirely, you can always turn it off completely.

This particular update doesn't appear that widespread, at the moment. It's also unclear if this was a late addition to the March 2023 feature drop. 9to5 mentioned that Google started developing this new notification system almost a year ago in April.

The surprises don't end there as it looks like Google has started rolling out another silent update to its Adaptive Charging feature and how it may work better for the user.

The appearance of an Adaptive Charging notification on a Pixel 7 without a set alarm.

(Image credit: 9to5Google)

The change was spotted by 9to5Google, which seems to show that Google has removed the previous alarm requirement for Adaptive Charging. 9to5 mentions that the feature launched in late 2020, it came with an initial window of alarms set from 5 am to 10 am (later bumped up to 3 am). Now, what's been discovered, is that the Adaptive Charging function is working without users needing to set the alarm on their phone themself, so the feature knows when to charge steadily and when to rapidly finish.

9to5's Abner Li notes the message, "full by 7:00 AM," which is around the time they wake up and grab their phone on weekday mornings. It could be that Google has implemented a way for your Pixel 7 Pro and others to know when activity stops for the night and resumes again in the morning as a little bit of added ease. Nonetheless, it gives users another option to enable Adaptive Charging without it disturbing their sleep.

Nickolas Diaz
News Writer

Nickolas is always excited about tech and getting his hands on it. Writing for him can vary from delivering the latest tech story to scribbling in his journal. When Nickolas isn't hitting a story, he's often grinding away at a game or chilling with a book in his hand.