Earlier this week, adaptive charging was updated with a status notification and a one-time button. In the process, Google may have updated the Pixel Adaptive Charging so that it no longer requires an alarm to work.
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this Aim smart feature To “help preserve long-lasting battery life” by not reaching 100% charge until you wake up. Your Pixel will stay at 80% and use the morning alarm to decide when to go to the end so it’s ready before you unplug it.
Important: When you charge your phone between 9pm-4am with the active alarm set for 3-10am, your phone may use adaptive charging. This feature must be turned on for your phone to use it. Learn how to set an alarm.
Initially (2020), Google set the wake window between 5-10am, later changed to 3-10am to accommodate more likely sleep schedules. Until then, people didn’t like how they had to manually set the alarm and that the Pixel couldn’t just learn their schedule automatically.
It appears that the alarm requirements have changed as we have encountered adaptive charging without one set. I don’t use a Pixel 7 to wake me up in the morning (uses a Pixel Watch instead), but Adaptive Charging is active now.
For the first time, I see my phone hanging at 80% with “Adaptive Charging – Full by 7:00 AM” at the bottom of the lock screen. The status notification also confirms that the battery will be full by 7 am
Notably, this is when I usually get up on weekdays. My Pixel 7 has no active alarm and Bedtime Mode is not set. (To exclude my phone getting the time from the Pixel Watch, this alarm on the wrist is set to 7:30 AM and there is currently no alarm syncing between the two devices.)
Google probably chose 7am as the default time for those without alarms. Another explanation is that Pixel phones now automatically detect when you start using your device in the morning and set that as a target time to automatically turn on adaptive charging.
This new approach could allow Google to enable adaptive charging for those with different sleep schedules, as well as those who don’t use their Pixel for alerts.
We’ll reach out to Google tomorrow to confirm how Adaptive Charging works now on the Pixel. The company did not update the file Support documents, with alarms still included as a condition. Meanwhile, we are now seeing the status notification after not seeing it a few days ago. It is unclear how these updates are rolled out.
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