In short: Some Pixel and Pixel 2 owners are reporting that their smartphones went into Battery Saver mode earlier today. It turns out that there was a weird bug going on that changed the setting to turn on Battery Saver at 99-percent instead of the default 15-percent. This caused many Pixel smartphones to go into Battery Saver at the beginning of the day. Many users on reddit are reporting this happened, and it also happened to a few people here at AndroidHeadlines. It’s a bit of a strange bug from Google, and many are pegging this on the September security patch, that many Pixel users started receiving this week.
Background: Battery Saver is a mode that doesn’t actually turn on by default. But users can set it to turn on when their phone hits 10 or 15-percent. There didn’t used to be an option for changing the percentage that this would turn on at, but with Pie, there is now a slider that you can use to change when the Battery Saver mode will kick in. Battery Saver will disable notifications, and put your phone into deep sleep when you aren’t using it. This allows the phone to save battery at the end of the day when you need to get a few more hours out of that battery.
The impact: Many Pixel users found their phones on battery saver mode this morning, and not getting notifications. This could be a bit of an annoyance for some people, but at least it is a fixable bug. Users can adjust the settings in Settings, tap on Battery and then Battery Saver. Then slide it down to 10 or 15-percent or you can opt to never have it turn on. A very weird bug indeed, and it’ll be interesting to hear what Google has to say about this bug, themselves.