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Actually, there is something you can do about it.
But it doesn't involve Google.
Google says the Pixel 8a and newer Pixel phones can withstand 1,000 charging cycles before their batteries drop down to 80% effective capacity. However, this Battery Health Assistance feature essentially reduces the phone’s battery capacity over and above standard degradation.
...
It’s also disappointing as some rival smartphone makers address battery health concerns by offering more durable batteries. For example, Samsung’s top phones can withstand 2,000 charging cycles before dropping down to 80% effective capacity, while OnePlus and OPPO’s lithium-ion batteries offer 1,600 cycles before reaching 80% capacity. So there likely wouldn’t be a need for a Battery Health Assistance tool if Google’s batteries had similar longevity.
Sounds like they could just use better batteries but they're too cheap. It is Google after all, just a small company without much money to spend.
that would be putting the customer over profits, a major no-no
Companies that use child slavery and modern slavery in their batteries holding people hostage to their decisions on how your personal devices should operate...sounds about right.
When will companies pay reparations to the affected populations for enabling their obscene profit?
EDIT: And if phones are melting, Google replacing or fixing affected devices or providing refunds is appropriate, I feel.
If only. My wife's phone is affected by a Google battery recall. You basically get $50 of shut-up money and get to live with a software update that nerfs your phone to an almost unusable state, or you can try and have a local, approved repair shop replace the faulty battery.
We're living in a large city, there is exactly one approved store available. You can't contact them by email, no one has picked up the phone in weeks. She is close taking the $50.
To echo what someone said yesterday when this was posted:
GrapheneOS
Indeed.
So, like Apple did, but worse?
did you read it? apple throttled device performance. google is throttling charging speed and battery capacity for safety reasons. there are literally phones melting. also, battery capacity is something people assume will go down over time. also they're giving clear notifications when people are affected.
it's not really the same, and definitely not worse
Apple throttled (and continues to throttle) device performance because going full power draw on a battery with higher than specified internal resistance will just end in a device shutdown.
They do this once there's a first unexplained shutdown. So that takes your actual battery health into account. In contrast, Google says "200 charges should be enough for anybody" and imposes its policy no matter what your actual battery looks like.
You can turn off the throttling on iOS in Settings > Battery > Battery Health (option shows up when your battery has degraded).
phones melting
Yeah, that’s worse.
I agree. Build your phone to not melt, and don't force degradation on the consumer in the name of "safety".
I was planning on capping charge to 80%, which should address a lot of these issues without artificial slowing added later.
Will it not add artificial slowing regardless? I think the controversial aspect of this strategy is that it doesn't care about the state of the battery, it just counts cycles.
Yeah, it sure seems like it will.
People keep raving about Pixels. All I see are overheating processors and now this bullshit
LOL. Guys, who is stupid enough yo buy anything from Google?