Matching up with Appleโs iOS, Google is testing a new battery health feature to let users know several key battery metrics on Android.
Support for this ability was spotted in the latest beta of Android 14, and can inform details like cycle counts, charging status, deviceโs manufacturing date, date of first use, charging policy, and state of health. News on when this would light for everyone is unknown, but thereโs already a third-party app supporting this function on Android.
Battery Health in Android 14
With every Android iteration, Google is making its native OS a much better alternative to Appleโs iOS. While itโs still falling behind in some spaces, the OEM is doing everything to catch up โ and be better in some โ against iOS. In this pursuit, Google is adding a battery health feature to Android 14.
Battery Health Status has been available in iOS since v11.3 and informs users when itโs the right time to replace it. The same is coming to Android, as noted by XDAโs Mishaal Rahman. In the latest Android 14 beta, Google added some new BatteryManager APIs to the OS.
While two of these APIs are public โ indicating cycle counts and charging status, the rest inform the deviceโs manufacturing date, date of first use, charging policy, and state of health. Further, Rahman states that any app having access to BATTERY_STATS can call these system APIs.
And we see third-party apps leveraging this already! Narekd developer made a battery health check app on Android named Batt, which uses the above-said permissions to report the smartphoneโs battery health and charging cycles.
The app is available from GitLab and works on any smartphone with the latest Android 14 beta. While itโs good to see someone making an app based on these APIs, beware that details from this Batt app may not be totally accurate at this point โ as it just relays the info shared by Android 14 APIs.
Other features cooking in the Android 14 betas are the ability to use the phone as a webcam while also improving the Screen Recording Feature. We shall wait a bit longer to see how good these are.