Pixel 4a battery update Google Pixel 4as ruinous Battery Performance update is a bewildering mess It's hard to say why Google is doing this instead of a recall. Kevin Purdy Jan 31, 2025 4:28 pm | 18 Credit: Ron Amadeo Credit: Ron Amadeo Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreWhat exactly is wrong with the batteries in some of Google's Pixel 4a phones still out there? Google has not really said. Now that many Pixel 4a owners are experiencing drastically reduced battery life after an uncommon update for an end-of-life phone, they are facing a strange array of options with no path back to the phone they had.Google's "Pixel 4a Battery Performance Program," announced in early January, told owners that an automatic update would, for some "Impacted Devices," reduce their battery's runtime and charging performance. "Impacted" customers could choose, within one year's time, between three "appeasement" options: sending in the phone for a battery replacement, getting $50 or the equivalent in their location, or receiving $100 in credit in the Google Store toward a new Pixel phone. No safety or hazard issue was mentioned in the support document.Ars has reached out to Google about the Pixel 4a battery updates and appeasement options provided and will update this post with any response.The curious kernelGoogle did not explain why only certain devices were affected, but Hector Martinof Asahi Linux, open source Kinect drivers, and other fametook apart the update's binary kernel and has some guesses.Martin points out that the updated Pixel 4a kernel has these interesting characteristics:It seems to have been built by a Google engineer "on their personal machine, not the proper buildsystem."There is no source provided, as would normally be required of a Linux kernel build, though it may only need to be provided on request under the GNU General Public License.The maximum charge voltage of certain battery profiles changes from 4.44 volts to 3.95, which would mean batteries cannot charge to anywhere near their former potential.There are two main battery profiles, with distinct "ATL" and "LSN" markers; Martin suggests they relate to Amperex Technology Limited and Lishen, manufacturers of battery cells.LSN-tagged batteries assigned the "debug" profile can see capacity reduced from 3,080 milliamp hours (mAh) to 1,539 mAh.Two hours on a charge or lessOne Ars staffer who had a Pixel 4a still in use received the update. They saw their battery life drop from "Still working" to "Two hours on a charge," in their estimation. They had chosen the Google Store credit option before the update arrived and before the battery life drop became apparent. Once chosen, a different appeasement option could not be selected.Others have noted all but unusable battery life on their phones, as seen on subreddit threads and blog summaries.Even technically savvy Pixel owners will have a hard time avoiding the update. Google last week removed all of the Pixel 4a's factory images from its website, preventing owners from rolling back their firmware without having to go hunting for an image (or convert to a third-party offering, like LineageOS). With no source and debug code posted for the tweaked kernel, third-party firmware providers cannot easily incorporate the battery fixes.Some Pixel 4a owners have reported that, even after a battery swap, their devices have the same limited battery capacity. This would affirm Martin's suggestion of a faulty battery cell type and that batteries with those same cells are still being used in replacements. (Martin's post provides serial numbers one can look for on the battery part to indicate the cell manufacturer.)$30 per year to receive $50As seen on a wiki page on the Pixel 4a battery program hosted by repair advocate and YouTube creator Louis Rossman, and noted by Pixel 4a owners on Reddit (and the Ars staffer), the $50 credit offered by Google is paid out through vendor Payoneer.Signing up to be paid through Payoneer requires providing a Social Security number or other identification, birth date, and checking account details to a financial services firm most non-business owners would not recognize. Payoneer notes on its site that it charges a $30 annual account fee for accounts that receive less than $2,000 in 12 months. It is seemingly left up to Pixel 4a owners to close out their Payoneer accounts after receiving their credits.Choosing the $100 Google Store credit might seem the better option, but there is a caveat there, too. The discount applies only to Pixel phones and only to devices that are not otherwise on sale.The big question: Why?As we noted when Google first announced the update, a lot of Pixel 4a batteries are now four to five years old. Some have been kept as secondary (or "junk drawer") phones, and many are already at diminished capacity, especially when at low charge levels and in cold conditions. If every Pixel phone this old received a battery-minded final update, intended to prevent sudden shutdowns (akin to Apple's originally unannounced iPhone slow-down fixes), there wouldn't be quite the amount of outcry and confusion there is now.But Google has not said why certain Pixel 4a phones are "Impacted Devices" and others are not. It has not clarified what issue is so notable or severe as to push an automatic update to a phone from 2020, such that its battery life is all but decimated. No news or community reports have surfaced yet of Pixel 4a devices causing fires, or even simply failing to function, after four years. It's an automatic update with a strong fix, but for what?Google's support page only states that the update will "improve the stability of their battery's performance." This is true in the sense that, if you stop using a severely capped Pixel 4a entirely, its battery can provide a stable amount of output (none) into the future.Google support staff have suggested to more than one 4a owner that yet another future update could force a factory reset and automatic update. That hasn't come to pass, at least in the timelines suggested by support staff. But all of this raises the question as to how this confusing process is better than a traditional recall, if there really is some kind of danger, to device or human, with a certain set of batteries.Kevin PurdySenior Technology ReporterKevin PurdySenior Technology Reporter Kevin is a senior technology reporter at Ars Technica, covering open-source software, PC gaming, home automation, repairability, e-bikes, and tech history. He has previously worked at Lifehacker, Wirecutter, iFixit, and Carbon Switch. 18 Comments