Wear OS 6 could bring this battery-saving Android feature to your Pixel Watch

Battery degradation is a leading cause of early device demise. It is also the primary reason why users choose to get said devices and/or their batteries fixed or replaced.

Major OEMs have taken initiatives to make battery degradation less of a concern, primarily by improving battery technology, better thermal management, by sharing more general tips about battery health, and by offering features that optimize charging.

On smartphones, OEMs offer ways for users to check their device’s battery health, paired with optimization features that learn your daily charging habits. Pixel’s charging optimization, for example, ensures that your device finishes charging to 100 percent right before you normally unplug your phone every morning. This ensures that your device isn’t continuously plugged in even after reaching full battery capacity.

Similarly, users also have the option to cap charging at 80 percent, which means no matter how long you keep your Pixel plugged in, it will only charge up to 80 percent to help preserve the battery’s long-term health. Said Pixel optimization features are not limited to smartphones — they’re also available on the Pixel Tablet, and it looks like the tech giant’s Pixel Watch series might soon be privy to Adaptive Charging too.

Hints surrounding Adaptive Charging’s arrival on Google’s wearable first appeared in February via a new code string in the Pixel Watch Management Service app. Now, new hints, as pointed out by the folks over at Android Authority, have made their way to the ClockworkSysUiGoogle (a system UI app) in the Wear OS 6 Developer Preview, making the eventual arrival of the feature all the more real.

Here’s what the newly-discovered code strings say

Those clearly highlight your Pixel Watch’s behavior when it’s charging with Adaptive Charging enabled and disabled. Strings indicate that the feature includes an “override” option for situations when you want your wearable to charge to 100 percent before the regularly-established time.

It isn’t entirely clear when the feature will become available, though later this year, bundled with the Wear OS 6 update, is a safe guess.