Google: self-started energy saving on Android devices was an internal test

Google has explained that an internal test is behind the recent phenomenon of Android 9 users experiencing an automatically enabled power-saving mode. This also happened when the battery was fully charged.

In a response to Reddit, the official Google account PixelCommunity states that it was an “internal experiment”. It writes: “It was an internal experiment to test energy saving measures, which was accidentally distributed to more users than intended. We have now reverted the energy saving settings back to their defaults.” It then apologizes for the confusion.

With this, Google is responding to users who noticed that the energy-saving mode on their devices had turned on itself. Normally this only happens when the battery percentage falls below a user-defined threshold, but that was not the case. According to The Verge, the phenomenon occurred on several devices running Android 9 or a beta version of the OS, such as Pixel devices, the OnePlus 6, the Essential Phone and Nokia devices.

Some Reddit users have criticized Google’s explanation, wondering why the company can change settings in this way.