Pixel 4a battery fiasco: Google apparently cut your battery in half and messed with more, but why?

The folks at Android Authority have dug into the Pixel 4a battery update and have apparently found what Google probably did.

If you're a Pixel fan, you've probably heard about the Pixel 4a battery fiasco that happened last month. In short, Google, all of a sudden, released an update that practically killed the 2020 Pixel 4a's battery. The move sparked huge controversy, hinting at planned obsolescence for a phone that performed perfectly fine before the dreaded update.

The update basically made some Pixel 4a devices practically unusable with a charge that wouldn't last nearly as much as before the update.

Now, it turns out the update may have cut the usable charge of the phone's battery by over 40%, and also nuked some features in the meantime.


At first, it seems like a 0.5V drop isn't that huge of a deal, right? Well, in fact, this apparently means the usable charge of the battery of the Pixel 4a has been cut by 44%! This is due to voltages.

In simple terms, a lithium-ion battery is designed to function between certain voltages. The lower limit, otherwise called the "cutoff voltage", of the Pixel 4a's battery is 3.3V. As the battery voltage drops (as it's discharging), it will reach 3.3V. The design is such that once the battery reaches 3.3V of voltage, the phone will turn off to protect against damage to the battery.

It turns out that the new 3.95V voltage corresponds to 56% of the full charge of the phone before the update. This pretty much means Google is now letting you charge your battery only to 56%.

But that's not all if you can even believe it. The update also reduced the charging speed. Li-ion batteries are usually charged at a current defined by a "C" value: for example, 1C charging on a 5,000mAh battery would mean 5,000mA of current flow into the battery.

Google's original charging for the Pixel 4a allowed up to 1C of current, which would be 3,080mA. However, the value is now reportedly halved to 1,540mA, which means that there is some charging speed decrease (0.5C, right?)

Google changed other things as well

Two other major functional changes were also introduced. The battery charge ETA is now disabled, so you won't be able to see an estimate of when your battery will be charged. It seems that the AI model that was behind this estimate was never updated for the new reduced capacity.

On top of that, the super useful Adaptive Charging feature which was there to help extend the life of batteries by learning your charging habits and slowing down charging when possible, is also disabled, probably for the same reason.

You are also unable to set the Pixel 4a to show battery percentage in the status bar from settings. However, if you were previously using the feature, it will still be on - but it won't show appropriate info, as it wasn't updated properly with the new capacity.

But there's more! Reportedly, the update wasn't just a surprise update, it was marked with an Emergency Maintenance Release (EMR) status. This type of build doesn't have to get all the usual certification steps as other updates and also was built without automation - on a developer's computer. An AA source said that the bug tracker entry for the update didn't have details in it, just an ominous title "sunfish (which is the codename for the Pixel 4a) sunset EMR".

Is this Google simply killing the Pixel 4a, or is it something else?

We may never know exactly what happened. However, the EMR status of the update indicates that Google rushed to get it out, and this suggests that maybe there was a reason. No matter how outrageous it may feel, it's likely that it wasn't just Google wanting you to move on from your Pixel 4a, but maybe there was a safety issue that got addressed.

The company removed all previous builds of the Pixel 4a firmware as well, so this suggests that maybe something was indeed wrong, although it's not clear what it could've been (hopefully not a Galaxy Note 7 type of thing!)

Google has offered replacements to affected users with some not-so-ideal conditions, and many people are left outraged by the entire fiasco. Unfortunately, though, it seems for many Pixel 4a fans, it's time for an upgrade.