Why is Google suddenly messing with charging on a regular basis? First the strange situation with the 4a, then whatever preceeded this, and now this…?
From the article:
The feature, which lets you leave your phone plugged in without having to worry about it being overcharged, is an extension of Pixel’s battery optimization features. As its name suggests, it limits your device from being charged over 80 percent, preventing premature battery degradation in the long run.
Every single mobile phone manufacturer, Google included, is continually attempting to improve battery life for many reasons.
Batteries are components that have varying attributes over their lifespan because they’re essentially chemical reactions hopefully contained inside a sealed pouch.
Chemical reactions that vary with temperature, manufacturing tolerances, electricity supply and usage patterns.
Attempting to write software to deal with this is non-trivial and changing.
What looks to you like the same bug might be, or it might not be. It could be a fix for something else that has an unexpected negative impact somewhere else.
The whole ecosystem is continuously in flux, each individual device, each manufacturing batch, and each product revision.
That the same software runs on so many devices is a miracle of modern proportions.
Source: I have been writing software for over 40 years.
I’m just unsure why this is surfacing now. I had that feature available in LineageOS for the better part of a decade. And similarly, it’s also been part of other manufacturer’s customizations for quite some time now (like Samsung).
Yep, I’ve been using the same basic feature on stock Android for years as well, with Magisk and Advanced Charging Controller (ACC).
