Is your Pixel phone's battery life tanking? You're not alone - here's what we know

Artie Beaty/ZDNET

A recent security patch is leaving Pixel phone owners – or at least their devices – pretty drained.

After the May Pixel patch, many owners began reporting that their device battery life has plummeted and the device itself is running hot. Both official Pixel support forums and Pixel subreddits have seen numerous posts over the past several days. The issue seems to be affecting a variety of devices from the Pixel 6 onward.

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Some users suggest that the culprit may be the Instagram app and said that removing the app fixed the problem, but other users without Instagram are also seeing the issue. I have a Pixel 8 Pro myself (without Instagram installed), and I can attest that my battery life has been significantly worse over the past week. I use my phone a lot during the day, but it usually makes it until bedtime. The past week, it's barely reaching 2 p.m.

Other users think there may be a problem with Wi-Fi connectivity. One Reddit post shows how the user's WiFi on their Pixel phone took up 100% of the battery life in just three hours. I've been seeing connectivity issues myself, with my phone turning Wi-Fi off by itself and being unable to connect to (or even see) any available networks when I turn it back on. 

A few fixes for the Pixel battery issue

Google hasn't acknowledged the issue, so there's no official fix. A power cycle (holding the power button down for 30 seconds until the phone restarts) temporarily fixes the Wi-Fi issue for me, which helps battery life a little, but the issue always comes back.

Some users also said removing Instagram helped, so if you have the app and you can live without it or use the web version on your phone's browser until this issue is resolved, that's another potential fix. 

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Of course, there's always Battery Saver mode, which improves battery life across the board but lowers the display's refresh rates, limits location sharing, and delays notifications.

If you're thinking about just going back to an earlier, pre-update version of Android, that's not possible. The latest version prevents your device from being rolled back because a previous version of Android was unstable and vulnerable to attacks.

We'll update this piece if Google offers an official explanation or fix.

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