Android May Soon Tell You When It's Time To Replace Your Phone's Battery

The next version of Android could give you an estimate of your battery's remaining capacity, which naturally degrades over time. 'Android 14 laid the initial groundwork for the OS to track battery health information, but Android 15 could actually bring that information in front of users,' reports Android Authority. It could also tell you whether your device's battery has been replaced. From the report: The manufacture date and cycle count aren't the only battery-related statistics that Android 14 exposes to apps through new APIs, though. Other battery health details like the date of first use, charging policy, charging status, and state of health are also available. The state of health is particularly interesting because it's an estimate of the battery's current full charge capacity, expressed as a percentage relative to the battery's rated capacity. For example, if your Pixel 8 battery's state of health is measured at 90%, that means its remaining full charge capacity is estimated to be about 4118mAh (compared to the rated 4575mAh).

The Settings app currently doesn't show the battery state of health, but that's set to change in the future, as the latest version of the Settings Services app (an extension to the Settings app on Pixel and other devices) found within Android 14 QPR2 Beta 2 has a new 'battery health' page that is set to show the state of health. Strings within the APK suggest this page will show you the 'estimated percentage of charge the battery can currently hold compared to when it was new' (i.e. the state of health) before and after 'recalibration' of the battery. We don't have the exact details on what 'recalibration' entails, but given that one string suggests the 'process may take a few weeks,' we're guessing that it's simply the system collecting data over a longer period to provide a more accurate estimate of the battery capacity. Meanwhile, the 'initial battery health values' are 'based on lab results' and hence 'may vary from your actual battery state.'

We also learned that the Settings app itself will surface 'tips' to the user when either the battery capacity is degraded or can't be detected, so the user doesn't have to manually check the 'battery health' page. Lastly, we learned that Google is working on exposing more battery-related information to the OS, such as the part status and the serial number. At the very least, we do know that Android will support reading the battery's part status and serial number, provided the battery exposes that information to the OS, and the vendor implements the new version of the Android health HAL. The health HAL is the software responsible for bridging the gap between the OS APIs that read battery/charging information (i.e. everything we talked about before) with the software that controls the battery/charging chips. Version 2.0 of the health HAL needs to be implemented to support all the new Android 14 battery health APIs like state of health, which is why so few devices support that right now.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.