How to eke out more battery life from your Pixel phone

If you want to get the most battery life out of your Pixel, Jack Wallen has four tips for you.

I’ve only had one Pixel phone that was really disappointing in the battery category and that was the Pixel 4. Other than that one issue, the phone was absolutely amazing. The Pixel 5 solved some of the battery issues, although it was far from outstanding. Aside from one major hiccup, the Pixel 6 has been a huge improvement over the 4 and 5 so far.

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But even if you think your phone battery can get you through the end of the day, there are always times when you need more juice. Instead of eight hours, you need 10. Or maybe you’re on a long business trip and really need to get more than 12 hours out of that battery.

With a little help, you can do just that. Let me show you four things you can do to get a little more life out of that battery.

How to enable adaptive loading

The first thing you should do is make sure that Adaptive Charging is enabled. What is adaptive charging you ask? Easy. Adaptive charging works while you charge your phone overnight.

Once activated, the feature will not activate until 9pm and will work until 4am to spread out the charging process over that entire period. Note, however, that adaptive loading will eventually turn on based on your usage cycle.

This extends the overall life and condition of the battery, making it better able to reach and hold a full charge.

To enable adaptive loading, go to Settings | Battery | Adaptive Settings, and then tap the Adaptive Charging ON/OFF slider to the ON position (Figure A).

Figure A

There is a caveat with adaptive loading. For it to actually work, not only do you need to leave it on a charger until after 9pm, but you also need to set an active alarm anytime between 5am and 10am. Adaptive charging works if the morning alarm is not set. I do not work.

How to enable adaptive battery

In the same settings window where you found Adaptive Charging, you will see the Adaptive Battery option, which you should also enable. Adaptive Battery tracks the apps you use most throughout the day and adjusts power allocation so the apps you use less get a small amount of resources.

Adaptive Battery relies heavily on AI to learn how you use your phone and makes appropriate adjustments to extend battery life. This should be considered a must.

How to enable adaptive brightness

To continue the topic of adaptivity, let’s consider Adaptive Brightness. Here’s how it works: Adaptive Brightness uses your phone’s sensors to adjust the display brightness to suit your surroundings. So when you’re in bright light, the display gets brighter. When you’re in lower light, the display dims. Given that displays are usually one of the main culprits in eating up your phone’s battery, this should be considered an option that needs to be enabled.

To enable Adaptive Brightness, go to Settings | View the Adaptive Brightness ON/OFF slider and tap it until it is in the ON position (Figure B).

Figure B

How to schedule battery saver mode

We will set a power saving plan. Battery Saver is a feature that learns how you use your device and automatically activates Battery Saver mode when the device runs out of precious juice. Once it kicks in, Battery Saver turns on dark mode, limits background activity and location services, switches to 4G, and halts non-essential systems.

By default, Battery Saver is set to turn on when your phone’s battery reaches 5%. However, if you prefer, you can set a sleep mode schedule based on your routine. To do this, go to Settings | Battery | Battery saving mode | Set a schedule. In the resulting window (Figure C), tap to enable Based on your routine.

Figure C

And that’s it. With these four quick tips, you should be able to squeeze a little more battery life out of your Pixel phone. Keep in mind that all of this depends very much on your usage. You won’t get nearly as much battery life from your device if you’re gaming or watching videos all day as you will if you’re just checking email, messaging, and posting on social media.

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