Google is surprising Pixel 4a owners with a new software update, though some owners won’t appreciate it. The new update will reduce the battery life of some devices.

The search giant published a support document on its Pixel Phone Help about the incoming update. Per Google, some Pixel 4a devices “require a software update to improve the stability of their battery’s performance.” The company will start rolling out an automatic Android 13 update to all Pixel 4a devices starting on January 8th. Notably, this patch isn’t the first post-support update to come to the Pixel 4a line. Google ended support for the 4a in 2023 but pushed one last surprise update for the phone in November of that year.

Google didn’t provide much detail about what’s changing with the update. It did explain that the patch includes “new battery management features” aimed at improving the “stability of your battery’s performance.” However, the company acknowledges that this may lead to Pixel 4a devices lasting “for shorter periods between charges,” “reduced charging performance,” and/or “changes to how the battery-level indicator on your phone shows your battery capacity.”

Impacted Pixel 4a owners can get a free battery replacement

While the battery update won’t negatively impact all Pixel 4a phones, Google does have an appeasement plan for those with Pixel 4a devices that will see reduced battery life.

Google is offering one of three options for impacted Pixel 4a users:

• Get a free battery replacement at a walk-in repair centre (U.S., Canada, U.K., Germany, Singapore, or India) or mail-in repair (U.S.-only).
• Get a $50 USD (or local equivalent — in Canada, roughly $72) payment.
• Get a $100 USD (or local equivalent — in Canada, roughly $144) Google hardware discount code applicable towards a new Pixel phone on the Google Store.

You can use this survey to determine if your Pixel 4a is one of the impacted devices.

Google says Pixel 4a owners have one year from the software release on January 8th to select one of the three appeasement options. After January 8th, 2026, the options won’t be available anymore.

While it’s not clear why, exactly, Google is pushing this battery management update to Pixel 4a devices, Ars Technica points out that the situation sounds a lot like the iPhone ‘batterygate’ scandal where Apple slowed down older iPhones to avoid issues with old, degraded batteries. As a quick reminder, the issue then was that older batteries might not be able to supply the same level of power as a new battery, potentially leading to unexpected shutdowns or other issues. Apple tried to mitigate that by slowing down phones but didn’t do enough to communicate what it was doing to users, eventually leading to a lawsuit over the slowdowns.

With the Pixel 4a, Google seems to be communicating the slowdowns ahead of time and offering compensation ahead of time, perhaps in an effort to avoid a lawsuit.

Source: Google Via: Ars Technica