Battery life remains a crucial feature of modern technology, particularly for mobile devices like laptops, smartphones, and smartwatches. Without adequate battery life, these devices become cumbersome and always leave you thinking about the next place to find a plug. If you have to top them up during the day all the time, it negates one of the main benefits of these devices; portability. Sure, agreat powerbankcan solve this issue, but you should not have to resort to an additional piece of hardware to make your device work. There are some software measures that manufacturers can add to alleviate the issue, and the Pixel Watch 2 in particular could seriously benefit from a key automation.
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Battery saving mode is essential on many devices
Some added peace of mind for our society dependent on electronics
To ensure devices have serviceable battery life, many devices have added battery-saving features to help you maximize your battery. Once turned on, they will reduce power consumption by shutting off or reducing certain features of your phone, such as lowering your screen’s refresh rate, turning on dark mode, and more. These measures can be useful if you’re traveling or going somewhere where you don’t need to use your phone and want to conserve battery life.
On many devices, you can even set up an automation to turn on battery saver based on your usage or when your battery hits a certain percentage. This means that you can extend your battery life automatically, which makes the feature even more useful.
Google is usually at the forefront of battery saving
The Pixel phones all have an automatic battery saver, so why not the watches?
Google has been at the forefront of many of these changes, both through Android updates and integrating these features into Pixel devices. However, while readily available on Pixel phones, this functionality has yet to be fully implemented in the Pixel Watch line. Sure, thePixel WatchandPixel Watch 2have a battery saver mode but, for some reason, it can’t turn on automatically.
There’s no real rhyme or reason why this is the case. All other Pixel devices have an automatic battery saver feature. It doesn’t make any sense why Google would ship battery saving mode on the Pixel Watch 1 and 2 but leave out the most convenient bit of it. Why am I harping so much on this small feature that the watch is missing? Well, it’s because the Pixel Watch and Pixel Watch 2 need it. Battery life is fine on these devices, but it’s definitely not the best in the industry. Many smartwatches from Garmin, Apple, and even Samsung can get better battery life than the Pixel Watches.
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An automatic battery saver could make all the difference on the Pixel Watch
This feature would be a great band-aid for poor battery life
Personally, I have a Pixel Watch 2 and can usually get about a day and a half out of the watch with always-on display and “Hey Google” turned off. With these features on, you’ll probably get closer to 24 hours of battery life. If the Pixel Watches had an automatic battery saver, I bet I could stretch it to two days of battery life if I need to. This would significantly change the value proposition and make the Pixel Watches a much more compelling choice.
Sure, you could also turn on battery saver and leave it on indefinitely. But then you’d lose out on features like tilt-to-wake all the time rather than just for the last few hours of the day. If you’re someone who uses the always-on display, you’d also lose out on that if you kept the battery saver active at all times. That’s why a battery saver that automatically kicks in at a certain percentage is the best way to go.
I’m glad Google included a battery saver feature in the Pixel Watches, but I don’t know why it didn’t go all the way. Google should prioritize adding automatic battery saver to the Pixel Watch through a future update to address this critical gap and make the Pixel Watch more competitive. Maybe we’ll finally get this with thePixel Watch 3, with a software update coming to the older devices.
