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How Android P Will Increase Battery Life

Author: Cameron Summerson / Source: howtogeek.com

Google has introduced significant new features to improve battery life on Android over the last few years, with Oreo bringing the best improvements yet. Here’s how it’s looking to improve that even further with Android P.

A Little History on Android Battery Life

Android’s battery issues have always been sort of an uphill battle—how do you build an operating system that allows for background services and quick multitasking without limiting users to only three hours of battery life?

This was a constant issue on older versions of Android—up until Android Marshmallow (6.x), anyway.

In Marshmallow, Google introduced a new feature named Doze Mode. This could be considered a sort of turning point for Android in terms of battery life, because it made a dramatic improvement that Google has been building off of ever since.

Doze Mode essentially “forces” your device to go into a deep sleep when you aren’t using it. Initially, it would only work when the device was lying on a flat surface, but was modified in Nougat (Android 7.x) to also work in pockets, purses, and so on—basically, whenever the phone isn’t in use. That’s cool.

In Android Oreo, a feature was added that showed which apps were running in the background or using battery, to let users see apps that were acting out. This, combined with Doze, really improved Android’s battery life and exposed when apps were working against the OS by refusing to sleep.

And now, with Android P, things are getting kicked up a notch.

How Android P Will Improve Battery Life

This year, Google I/O saw a slew of announcements for Android, including the P beta. Google also highlighted a couple of new battery-saving features: Adaptive Battery and Adaptive Brightness.

Let’s take a closer look.