Summary
- Android 16 Beta 3 hides a new battery icon design that changes color (red, green, white) to reflect the device’s charging status and remaining battery level.
- Google is revisiting the Android status bar, with updated icons, including a redesigned battery indicator and tweaks to the Wi-Fi signal icon.
- The status bar and battery icon changes are present in the beta, but they’re hidden. Their official release in Android 16 is not confirmed, and they may appear in a later update or even Android 17.
Google’s stable Android 16 is still a few months away, though we’re already starting to get a taste of what the operating system might entail. Hidden within the latest Beta 3 are changes that the tech giant is reportedly testing for future releases, including a revamped UI that brings Android 15’s Settings refresh to its subsequent sub-menus.
Additionally, the tech giant has also been found to be experimenting with transparent notification alerts, alongside giving your Pixel’s lock screen clock a new home inside the notification shade. The new beta also (finally) brings the long-awaited iPhone-like battery health monitoring feature, highlighting your Pixel’s battery capacity alongside helpful articles about how you can prevent and/or slow down battery degradation. However, that might not be the only battery-related upgrade expected with Android 16.
The tech giant might be looking at re-doing the Android status bar with new icons, including a dynamic battery indicator icon that changes depending on the juice left in your device, as spotted by credible Android analyst Mishaal Rahman in an Android Authority report.
Carrying over from Android 15
The change, which has seemingly been in development for roughly a year at the very least, was expected to go live with Android 15. That, however, never happened. Now, hints point at the revamp with further upgrades to land sometime during the later stages of Android 16’s lifecycle.
As seen in the screenshots above — with battery percentage disabled (left) and enabled (right) —the three main colors used to denote different battery capacities are white, green, and red. White indicates that your device has sufficient battery and isn’t charging. Green denotes that your device is charging. Red denotes that your phone is running low on battery.
The battery percentage text itself appears to be bolder than the current implementation on Android 15, complete with an iOS-like Wi-Fi signal strength icon.
The new status bar is still hidden in Android 16 Beta 3, so simply updating won’t surface the UI for you. Considering that, there’s no certainty that the updated icons will appear with the first Android 16 stable release. The redesign could very well be reserved for a future quarterly release, with Rahman suggesting that it could be delayed to next year’s Android 17 too.
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