Every significant Android version includes a number of high-profile, user-facing improvements that receive a lot of promotion and media attention, but it also includes numerous low-profile, internal changes that may be just as significant in terms of user experience. Consider the impending release of Android 15. The second beta of Android 15 was unveiled this week at the Google I/O 2024 developer conference. It has a ton of exciting new features, like enhanced theft detection services, Private Space, App Pairs, and much more. However, Google also quietly released a few interesting facts about Android 15 during I/O, including the fact that on certain devices, it can extend standby battery life by up to three hours.
I questioned Sameet Samat, President of the Android Ecosystem, and Dave Burke, VP of Engineering for the Android Platform, at Google I/O about how Google came to be able to reveal battery life improvements in the most recent version of Wear OS. In case you missed the news, Google essentially stated that wear OS 5 smartwatches use up to 20% less battery during marathon runs than Wear OS 4 smartwatches. Samat stated that numerous modifications were made to achieve this particular gain. One such optimization was a decrease in the amount of time the device’s primary applications processor (AP) took to return to sleep after being awakened to write some health data.
Samat continued by discussing how Wear OS 5 now pushes more background duties to while your watch is charging as opposed to when it is on your wrist. Determining the best period to execute background tasks is a significant obstacle for Wear OS and Android as an entire system. When the device is in a condition where it has been inactive for some time and its screen is off, Android attempts to intelligently delay and run as many background operations at the same time during specific “maintenance windows.” Since Android6.0, the doze mode has been a crucial component of Android’s power management system, and Android 15 is reportedly making even more enhancements to it, according to Dave Burke.
Burke mentioned some generic power-saving updates that will eventually be available for all Android devices in response to Samat’s remark. He claims that the corporation increased the doze time by 50% in Android 15. As a result, Android 15 smartphones will enter doze mode 50% quicker than Android 14 devices. As a result, standby battery life has improved-on some devices that Google tested, it can reach three hours.
“We’ve increased the doze time-which is when we enter a quiet state-by 50% for Android 15. As a result, we enter a state of doze 50% quicker, which leads to up to three hours of standby power on some of the devices we examined. And that’s essentially a universal enhancement in 15 for all devices. Dave Burke is the Android Platform’s Vice President of Engineering.
Since this modifies a vital part of Android, all devices that get the Android 15 upgrade will benefit from this enhancement. Wear OS is included in this, however it’s important to note that the next Wear OS 5 platform update depends on Android 14 rather than Android 15. If Google keeps up its yearly schedule of issuing Wear OS platform updates, then there is still something to look forward to in the Wear OS 6 update next year. Although the other battery-related enhancements we highlighted and new features like a grid-based app launcher and privacy dashboard won’t be included in this year’s Wear OS 5 release, this particular improvement won’t.
