Most smartphone users who have used their devices for several years are familiar with the problem. The battery in a new phone seems to last forever, but after a while, the capacity decreases more and more. Until you have to charge the device several times a day.
However, this is precisely the point at which many people make a serious mistake: they keep charging their battery to 100 per cent so that it lasts a long time. But in the long term, this has the exact opposite effect, as your battery becomes weaker and weaker.
Google is finally declaring war on this problem with Android 15. In a beta version, users can already test the new Charging Optimisation feature, which makes your smartphone battery last much longer.
Find out how to charge a phone properly.
Android 15 charges your battery perfectly every time
How it works: Google has built a simple but clever function into the latest Android 15 beta: Charging Optimisation. Once switched on, it ensures that the smartphone battery is only charged to 80% during the charging process. The charging process is then ended.
This is particularly important because fully charging the battery reduces its capacity in the long term. Many people are probably already aware of this, but few pay attention to it when charging their devices. This is mainly because many smartphones do not give a direct indication when a certain charge level has been reached.
Chris Martin / Foundry
Optimised charging is already built into newer iPhones. Google has been offering this function since Android 15 QPR1 Beta 1. Beta 2 introduces an additional option that allows you to activate or deactivate the function as required. So if you want to charge to 100% before a trip or similar, you can set this directly.
Android 15 also offers adaptive charging, which is already used on Google Pixel devices. This means that the battery is first brought to 80% and then charged to 100% before you need the smartphone. The set wake-up time is used as a reference value.
Who can get the feature?
The new option for optimised charging is currently available to beta users in Android 15 QPR1 Beta 2, which has been available since 12 September and is specifically designed for Pixel smartphones (Pixel 6 and above).
Check out out list of the best smartphones.
This article originally appeared on our sister publication PC-WELT and was translated and adapted from German.
Author: Laura Pippig, Staff Writer, PC-WELT
Laura is an enthusiastic gamer as well as a movie and TV fan. After studying communication science, she went straight into a job at PCMagazin and Connect Living. Since then, she has been writing about everything to do with PCs and technology topics, and has been a permanent editor at our German sister site PC-WELT since May 2024.