Google could soon bring its Adaptive Charging battery protection feature from its Pixel phones to the Pixel Watch line. The feature is designed to preserve battery health by preventing overcharging, and hinges on its ability to predict your charging schedule.
Android Authority spotted code strings that reference Adaptive Charging in the latest version of the Pixel Watch Management Service system app, though the feature isn’t yet available to use. It’s also unclear which Pixel Watch models might be supported, or when it will officially launch.
The code doesn’t give any details on how Adaptive Charging will work on the Pixel Watch, but it’s likely to be similar to Google’s phones. They learn users’ charging habits and avoid charging to 100 percent capacity until an hour before they’re typically unplugged. This avoids battery degradation from overcharging, prolonging the lifespan of the cells.
Adaptive Charging is useful on phones because of how common it is to charge overnight, making it relatively easy to predict what time a phone is likely to come off the charger. That’s less likely to help on the Pixel Watch, given that many users will use their wearable for sleep tracking, and instead charge it quickly during the day. With a 24-hour battery life, even the latest Pixel Watch 3 still needs a daily charge. Given that shorter battery life, we’d also worry that grabbing the watch from the charging cradle at only 80 percent capacity would be… frustrating, to say the least.
