How to eke out more battery life from your Pixel phone

If you’re looking to squeeze as much battery life from your Pixel phone, Jack Wallen has a few tips for you.

I’ve only had one Pixel phone that was truly disappointing in the battery category and that was the Pixel 4. Outside of that one issue, the phone was absolutely fantastic. The Pixel 5 solved some of the battery issues, although it wasn’t stellar by any stretch. So far, except for one major hiccup, the Pixel 6 has been a vast improvement over both the 4 and 5.

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

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

Enable Adaptive Charging

The first thing you’re going to want to do is to make sure Adaptive Charging is enabled. What is Adaptive Charging, you ask? Simple. Adaptive Charging works as you charge your phone overnight.

Once enabled, the feature doesn’t kick in until 9 p.m. and works until 4 a.m. to spread the charging out over that entire period. Do note, however, that Adaptive Charging will eventually activate based on your usage cycle.

What this does is extend the overall life and health of the battery so it is better able to achieve and retain a full charge.

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

Figure A

There is one caveat to Adaptive Charging. For it to actually work, you not only have to hold off putting it into a charger until after 9 p.m., but you also have to have an active alarm set any time between 5-10 a.m. Without the morning alarm set, Adaptive Charging won’t work.

Enable Adaptive Battery

In the same settings window you found Adaptive Charging, you’ll notice the Adaptive Battery option, which you should also enable. Adaptive Battery keeps track of the apps you use the most during the day and adjusts the power allocation such that those apps you use less are given a small amount of resources.

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

Enable Adaptive Brightness

Continuing the theme of Adaptiveness, let’s consider Adaptive Brightness. Here’s how it works: Adaptive Brightness uses the phone’s sensors to adjust the display brightness according to your surroundings. So if you’re in bright light, it will brighten the display. If you’re in dimmer light, it will dim the display. Given that displays tend to be one of the primary culprits in gobbling up your phone’s battery, this should be considered a must-enable option.

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

Figure B

Schedule the battery saver

Finally, we’re going to set a battery saver schedule. Battery Saver is a feature that learns how you use your device and automatically enables the Battery Saver mode when said device is running low on precious juice. Once it kicks in, Battery Saver turns on dark mode, limits background activity and location services, switches to 4G and stops non-essential systems.

Out of the box, Battery Saver is set up to turn on when your phone reaches 5% battery. However, if you prefer you can set a schedule for battery saver, based on your routine. To do that, go to Settings | Battery | Battery Saver | 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 bit more battery life from your Pixel phone. Just remember, all of this is very much based on your usage. You’re not going to get nearly as much battery life from your device if you spend all day gaming or watching videos as you would if you were just checking email, messaging and posting on social media.

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