Google nerfs Pixel 6a batteries following fire hazard

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/07/a-mess-of-its-own-making-google-nerfs-second-pixel-phone-battery-this-year/

by fffrantz • 1 year ago

67 52 1 year ago

If only there were a way to quickly swap out defective, used batteries for new, safe batteries without needing to return a critical device to the manufacturer.

dmitrygr4• 1 year ago

Someone needs to first make replacement batteries in the right dimensions, voltage, etc...

homebrewer• 1 year ago

It takes about five seconds after a new phone is released for Chinese factories to design and start selling all sorts of accessories, including batteries. High quality ones too.

The average consumer needs to be able to swap it without doing deep surgery on the phone, and that's on the phone's manufacturer.

SideQuark• 1 year ago

Pretty much any phone repair store swaps them out in store. I've done exactly a Pixel 6 recently.

readthenotes1• 1 year ago

I think it's sad and funny that most of the replies to this assume the difficulty of the non-replaceable battery. For years, it was the way things worked. Smaller battery, maybe a spare in your pocket. Then the iPhone:(

eddythompson802• 1 year ago

I don't think it helps anyone to dismiss the difficulty involved in doing that in 2025 vs 2004.

I'm not saying it's not possible, of course it is, but there is some friction and difficulty especially if you seriously want to compete with Apple, Samsung, Oppo, Xiaomi, etc.

Fairphone exists[0]. Nobody is in the market for either a Fairphone vs Galaxy vs Pixel.

Terr_• 1 year ago

I hate this "tabs and adhesive" business. I've had to replace batteries way more often than I've benefited from it being a couple millimeters smaller or marginally better sealed against being dropped into a puddle.

AceJohnny2• 1 year ago

Reminds me of the iPhone throttling battery fiasco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batterygate

What happened was:

1. Battery defects caused some of them to underperform, leading the battery management subsystem to shut down the phone due to voltage drop when too much current was drawn.

2. To work around the shutdown issue (very bad), Apple implemented throttling (IMHO less bad) in a new version of iOS, to prevent too much current from being drawn. They figured the throttling would be so light as to be unnoticeable to users, except...

3. Benchmarkers noticed the throttling, and all hell broke loose.

Battery defects are unfortunate, but the decision to make them not user-serviceable leads to a host of bad downstream decisions.

(Of course, making them user-serviceable also leads to a host of other difficult decisions, and I'm not just talking about opening the case. What happens to system design when you can no longer trust the battery's specs?)

ryao2• 1 year ago

My recollection is different. The batteries were not defective. They simply got old in terms of cycle life and once they were old enough, they could not support the peak current needed by the phones causing crashes. Apple shipped an iOS update that throttled the CPU frequencies of phones with old batteries and called it a stability update without explaining anything. Phones stopped crashing, but started to become slower. Then 12-18 months later, people realized how the update worked and there was outrage because of how Apple handled it. Then Apple shipped an update to give customers visibility into this, published documentation and offered to replace batteries that were below 80% capacity for $29 for a year.

giingyui• 1 year ago

“We found that a small number of iPhone 6S devices made in September and October 2015 contained a battery component that was exposed to controlled ambient air longer than it should have been before being assembled into battery packs. As a result, these batteries degrade faster than a normal battery and cause unexpected shutdowns to occur. It’s important to note, this is not a safety issue.”

Seems a defect to me.

frollogaston• 1 year ago

I've owned multiple iPhones that I've kept for a long time. The iPhone 6 was the only one that shut down randomly, and the phone was only 2 years old then, so yes it seemed defective. After it did that once, it got throttled to the point of being nearly unusable for several months until Apple pushed an update to let me disable that.

Most users seemingly responded by just buying newer iPhones that didn't have this problem, before Apple even offered the $29 fixes. I got an old iPhone 5 instead, and it was fine. So I'm pretty convinced the 6 was just bad.

maxglute• 1 year ago

First 4a, now 6a. At least they're giving 100 USD this time and 6a batteries not total dogshit like 4a and it won't turn into landline.

Annoying 150 USD store credit can't go towards something like Youtube Premium. Or multiple 6a credits can't be stacked on 1 device. Cause I'm never touching a pixel again.

luckylion3• 1 year ago

Yeah, while I liked the pixel 4a, I just upgraded to a 7a because of this nonsense (thankfully I did not go with a 6a!) If they come for the 7a next year, I won't choose a pixel again either.

Sure, I could send it in for a battery replacement. and not have a phone for a week or two, and get my phone back or maybe not.

gruez2• 1 year ago

Sure, I could send it in for a battery replacement. and not have a phone for a week or two, and get my phone back or maybe not.

There's walk-in replacements in select countries:

Starting July 21, 2025 battery replacement will be available:
At walk-in repair centers in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, Singapore, Japan, and India.
[...] Additional battery replacement capability is expected in Japan, France, some other parts of Europe, and Australia soon.

kotaKat• 1 year ago

I got told mine doesn't qualify. I'm now worried, will this mean it's going to blow up some time down the line and Google's gonna forget about me?

nosioptar• 1 year ago

The article says only one of two battery types are a problem. Probably means you have the non problem battery.

Or it could mean they've assessed your next of kin are the non-litigious sort...

xnx2• 1 year ago

Pixel 6a owners can get $100 in cash or $150 in store credit. Alternatively, Google offers a free battery replacement with the same limits on phone condition.

This seems very fair

gruez2• 1 year ago

Yeah, most people would not mind getting a free battery replacement 2-3 years after they bought their phone.

mook• 1 year ago

From the article comments, that only applies if your phone is pristine (I guess because opening the phone stresses the screen, so if the screen has any damage it'll exacerbate the problem). Also linked in the article, getting the cash may be unreasonably difficult even in cases when they have a credit card on file that bought the phone.

Fripplebubby2• 1 year ago

I just filled it out for store credit, and it didn't matter at all the condition of my phone (it's in horrible shape), I just put in the IMEI number and that was that. It could be different for cash, though.

eddythompson802• 1 year ago

This might be a different program, but NEVER use Google's trade-in program.

You might get lucky, but they use a third party to process the phones and they have ZERO oversight or control over them. It's extremely common to send in a perfectly working phone to get denied because it's DOA with whatever claim and google refuses to do anything about it because "it's an external partner"

xnx2• 1 year ago

Good to know. I guess I got lucky with my two trade-ins.

Marsymars2• 1 year ago

It’s okay, but the cash is pretty tricky to get full value from if you’re not on your toes. It goes through the “Payoneer” service. The Payoneer terms aren’t entirely clear, but seem to imply that you’ll get charged an annual fee after a year if you keep the account open but inactive.

If you want the payment in non-USD, Payoneer takes a 2% cut on conversion fees - I figured I’d take the payment in USD, but neglected to do a full read-through of how the payment would happen - it comes as a wire transfer, and the bank I used has a 15 USD incoming wire transfer, so I got hit with that instead of the 2% conversion fee. (And the payment got blocked until the bank called me to inquire about whether I was expecting a wire transfer.)

I really would have just preferred a physical cheque in USD. (The mechanism with which I’ve received refunds for recalls from other companies that didn’t want to do internationalized payments.)

tacomagick• 1 year ago

Not sure if it is different than mine but I use Payoneer to get payments through Fiverr, From my knowledge they don't really hold money but just transfer it to your available card. I have never been hit by a fee for inactive account (i've paused my gigs on Fiverr but not my Payoneer account for more than a year at this point)

The fees are quite real though, before I've moved to using BTC for payments i've been getting around 900~ while when i moved to BTC my payments went up to 1900~ thanks to no wire and skipping Fiverr's and Payoneer's cuts.

tracker1• 1 year ago

I took the new 4a battery earlier this year... it still works fine, though somewhat itching for something faster, larger and more responsive.

kesslern• 1 year ago

I just ran into this on my wife's phone. I started removing the tempered glass screen protector to replace with a new one and the whole screen came up. The battery had started to puff up enough to lift the edge of the screen.

ChrisArchitect• 1 year ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44447802

fffrantz• 1 year ago

Sorry for double posting, missed it at the time!

pan69• 1 year ago

The new July Android update adds "battery management features" that will make the phone unusable.

I didn't get from the article how the update will make the phone unsable.

clumsysmurf• 1 year ago

If its like the 4A updates, your phone will charge rapidly and discharge rapidly. And half the time the phone is charged it will say 100% and then go to 5%.

lysace• 1 year ago

I get nervous when I see videos of people buying random Li-Ion/Po-battery powered crap from Teemu etc.

My personal policy for buying anything with such a battery: the seller must have a meaningful presence in my country and sell for at least like $10M/year.

craftkiller• 1 year ago

Their website says I am "not eligible" but that doesn't tell me if my pixel 6a is impacted or not. It would be nice if Google would tell me if my phone is a fire hazard.

nickjj3• 1 year ago

So here's a fun story on how Google completely ruined my Pixel 4a and will not help resolve it over the last 7 months.

In January 2025, Google pushed an emergency Android update to Pixel 4 devices which completely killed the battery's life.

They offered an extended warranty to get the battery replaced at any official Google repair center for free. They claimed a new battery would resolve the issue and your battery would drain at a normal rate.

For context I live in NY and the official Google repair center I visited has ~500 4.7 star reviews. I'm not going to out them publicly because despite all of this nonsense the local store owner seemed genuine.

---

VISIT 1: I went to their official repair center and they swapped the battery. It took ~2 hours plus ~45 minututes in travel time.

The new battery was put in and it did help but it still drained faster than pre-any updates. However it was usable from a battery life perspective.

After the repair I noticed my phone's display stopped turning on when I picked up and angled the phone towards me. I also noticed that more often than not if I got any type of notification (even an incoming call) the display would not turn on. Lastly, my phone would not unlock normally. Normally I would flick the bottom of the screen with my thumb maybe 1 inch and it would turn on and prompt me for my pin. Now I had to drag my entire finger up the whole phone like I'm 80 years old and it would only unlock 30% of the time.

---

VISIT 2: I explained the situation to them, another ~3 hours of total time at the store.

They replaced the display of the phone and it made little difference. There were still problems listed above which I demonstrated in front of the store owner.

He went back and got some tools and they hooked up a diagnostics tool to my device in front of me and confirmed the proximity sensor was not functioning. The owner of the store told me it's unfortunately common for this to get damaged during a battery replacement.

He said the best they can do is order a new motherboard but it will wipe everything.

At this point I've already had a ~30 reply email thread with Google support where they kept saying they can't do anything except suggest keep going to the repair center I've been to.

---

VISIT 3: They replace the motherboard, another ~3 hours of total time at the store plus ~3 hours to set everything back up again on my own

Most of the issues went away, but the phone still doesn't turn on a lot when I get new notifications of any kind.

However, the battery started draining quite fast again. We're talking losing 28% battery for a 2 hour phone / voice call with the display turned off.

Just texting my friend on Whatsapp with 15 messages drained 5% battery. My phone at this point is very not usable with battery life. The battery life is ok if it's idling doing literally nothing but as soon as I do anything, it drains fast.

There's ~50 replies to the Google support email and they said sorry, nothing they can do. I can mail the phone to them and they can try repairing it but it will cost me out of pocket and I'll be out of a phone for however long that process takes.

---

VISIT 4: The repair center gave me a new battery

At this point I told them I can't afford to keep going to the store and having my phone damaged on every visit and they said they can do the battery replacement at my apartment in their work truck. The store owner told me "changing the battery is the easiest thing in the world, it's safe to do in the truck".

So their most experienced tech came and did the battery replacement.

The tech told me the phone is good to go, quickly showed me the phone's display is turned on and I unlocked it with my pin like I normally do. He left.

The store owner told me this is the last time they will service the phone and if there's any other problems to call corporate.

Over the rest of that day and early morning next day I noticed the battery replacement made zero difference, it still drains at the same rate. My phone is essentially unusable and not dependable from a battery life perspective.

However, I tried logging into my trading platform of choice which is 100% dependant on biometric 2FA and if the fingerprint fails it falls back to the pin.

That app won't even let me attempt to login, it simply errors out saying biometrics is unavailable. My bank's app says the same thing. The phone itself has zero reaction to the fingerprint sensor. It's completely dead.

I called them and let them know and he said sorry, it's really easy for the fingerprint sensor to be damaged during a battery replacement.

He said he can order a new sensor and service it one last time but it might be a day or 2. I told him I'm locked out of my trading account with my life's savings actively in the market and if I can't execute a trade due to this, should I hold him or the corporate company responsible for any losses.

He very quickly said to hang tight and 5 hours later he sent someone to do the repair because they found a different fingerprint sensor at a different store location (they have a few locations in a 30 mile radius).

---

VISIT 5: They come with a new fingerprint sensor

They used the truck again with the same senior tech who swapped the battery in visit 1 and visit 4.

I ask the tech to do an exhaustive test in front of me at the end to ensure everything is in working order.

The tech says he can't do any tests and told me basic things like turn the phone on, take a picture, etc.. It was up to me to walk him through my definition of an exhaustive check based on limited knowledge so I did everything I could think of and it all worked, except charging was very spotty which turned out to be due to his charging cable being bad, it worked fine with mine.

The fingerprint sensor worked when I tried it a few times on that visit.

However, after using the phone for a few days I noticed something really weird. The fingerprint sensor is literally moving behind the back piece of the phone. In fact, if I took my fingernail I could probably pick it up and lift it out. It does not feel normal.

---

I called corporate and explained all of this. Someone was supposed to call me back yesterday but they never did. Now it's near end of day on Friday so I doubt I'll get a call back until next week.

This whole ordeal has been like ~80 Google emails of which for the last 3 weeks, Google stopped responding to them. All of my responses are objective, asking for assistance, non-confrontational, non-emotional and completely reasonable. I just want a resolution where I have a working phone that I can depend on without me needing to buy a new one because a 2 trillion dollar company forcefully broke my phone.

This whole experience has jaded me in ways I never thought was possible from witnessing a massive amount of incomptenance and complete lack of care towards someone who has been using Google products since Google was invented.

rkagerer• 1 year ago

Sorry to hear about your terrible experience.

This is why I wish it were viable to have a second, "hot spare" phone that synced everything (including secure enclave things like 2FA seeds), and to do so without having to rely on your smartphone vendor's cloud.

chmod775• 1 year ago

You live in NY on supposedly a NY income and waste hundreds of hours trying to get a $300 (now $150 new) phone fixed?

The reason I bought a 4a is because if it has any issues I'm going to get a new one. At this point you would've been better off moonlighting a minimum wage job for 30 hours and using that money to replace the phone with a much nicer model. Why would you do this to yourself?

nickjj3• 1 year ago

It's about the principle of the matter. A 2 trillion dollar company rendered my perfectly working phone close to unusable and every visit to their official repair center broke it even further.

I picked the 4a because I liked its small size, wired headphone jack and the camera is great. It was 100% fine before all of this started and probably would have lasted until the hardware naturally died. It ran everything I wanted super smoothly.

A more modern phone that's heavier, larger and requires babysitting bluetooth earbuds is a downgrade in my book.

chasil• 1 year ago

Your other option prior to your first visit was to load LineageOS, but that would also have resulted in a wipe.

It would have given you time, however, to find a technician with more experience with this model.

On the other hand, the battery problem was physically dangerous, and that should have some bearing.

nickjj3• 1 year ago

Yep I almost did that first but decided against it because I didn't want to get stuck with no phone in case something went wrong with the process. At that time I was technically on-call for work too.

The store owner told me they serviced a bunch of 4a devices and had lots of experience. They were also suggested by Google as an official repair center with good reviews.

Google nerfs Pixel 6a batteries following fire hazard

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