A new snippet of code is hinting that in the future, Google Pixel phones will take advantage of a new “Ultra Low power mode” to further extend battery life.
A new code change within Android spotted by XDA-Developers‘ Mishaal Rahman hints that the feature would give you better battery life “at the cost of user experience.” Meanwhile, the existing low power mode gives you more juice “at the cost of performance.” Because of this, there’s a good chance the “Ultra Low” mode will turn off even more elements of your phone like its color display, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radios, and more to make your device last as long as possible.
This feature would especially benefit phones with unnecessarily small batteries like the Pixel 4. its 2,800mAh cell is just barely enough for light phone users to get through a day. With the “Ultra Low” mode on, I can imagine you’ll get at least a couple more hours of usage out of the device, but I’m guessing solely based on speculation.
That being said, Android 11 betas should be hitting relatively soon, and this new mode might be included in them. If that’s the case, we’ll watch the feature evolve over the summer and we’ll get to see if it actually makes a difference. Stay tuned.
