Did you see the battery saver on your Android Pie device activate automatically last night? Well, you are not alone as several devices running the latest iteration of Android noticed this power-saving kick in out of the blue.
Reddit is flooded with reports that several Google Pixel devices, along with the Essential Phone, Nokia 7 plus and the OnePlus 6 – all running some form of Android Pie (stable or beta builds) were affected by this weird bug.
Battery saver helps keep your device running for a little longer by limiting unnecessary background apps, lowering the brightness, and not using mobile data.
A lot of users called it a standard practice, with OEMs A/B testing features prior to official rollout. But it surely has creeped out many other people.
Well, as per an official statement posted by Google on Reddit, it was an accident which stemmed from an internal experiment and extended beyond the scope of devices that should’ve been included in it. You can find the complete statement right here:
“Hi all, some of you may have noticed that battery saver turned on automatically today. This was an internal experiment to test battery saving features that was mistakenly rolled out to more users than intended. We have now rolled battery saver settings back to default. Please configure to your liking. Sorry for the confusion.”
The change made to the battery saver mode for Android Pie devices has, however, now been reverted and you shouldn’t face any issues with the feature.
However, the incident does call into question how much control Google has on your phone. Yes, we run its software, but did Google go a step too far? Let us know in the comments.
