Here’s a workaround for the horrible battery life on the Pixel 6 with Android 13
This problem won’t be fully resolved until Google issues an update, of course. However, there is a way you can minimize the damage. Two of my colleagues have been having horrible battery life on their Pixel 6 units. When I say horrible, I actually mean it. After 3 to 3 and a half hours of screen-on-time battery drops to around 20%. Needless to say, that’s really bad, especially considering that the same device pushed well beyond 7 hours of screen-on-time on Android 12. So, what worked? Well, after some tinkering, one of my colleagues managed to figure out that messing with mobile data settings can improve things. You can try locking your data connection to 3G, 4G, or 5G. You can try setting it to 3G or 4G max, depending on where you live, we haven’t really tried the 5G option. Both settings seem to work. Simply search for ‘Preferred network type’ in the Settings (via the search bar), and you’ll see the option to change this.
Our battery stats improved significantly
Once that change was made, the battery life improved significantly. We were able to get 6-7 hours of screen-on-time three days in a row. That is miles better compared to what we were getting beforehand. We do not guarantee this will work, but it did for us, so it may for you as well. It doesn’t hurt to try, that’s for sure. As I already mentioned, this is definitely not a solution. Google needs to issue an update for this so that you can use your phone as you usually would, without locking the mobile data connection type. Still, if you’re having battery life issues on the Pixel 6, doing this will certainly help.
