[Update: Fix in works] Google Pixel 5 excessive battery drain issue when in idle mode (overnight) gets some workarounds

New updates are being added at the bottom of this story……

Original story (published on November 5, 2020) follows:

The Google Pixel 5 has a much more power efficient chipset (SD 765G) when compared to the previous generation Pixel 4XL (SD 855). This should theoretically result in better battery performance. However, excessive battery drain issues can hinder that.

There have already been plenty of battery drain reports across all Pixel phones after Android 11 updates, which you can read about here. However, it appears now that the Pixel 5 is suffering the worst among the bunch.

i’m having the exact same problem. Charged my phone up to 100%, took it off charge and went to bed. Woke up this morning 8 hours later, and despite the screen being off all that time and it just sat there idle, it was down to 67%. No app was hogging the battery, i’ve tried rebooting the phone, i even tried a full factory reset yesterday morning. I’m still having unacceptable battery drain whilst the phone is idle. I have no idea if i need to get my phone replaced, or wait for a software update?
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Yep same problem with my new pixel 5, battery drains ~25% in standby overnight, which seems excessively high. My pixel 4 XL i think only had ~8-10% at most. Definitely something wrong that the app usage graph is not showing.
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Users are reporting substantial battery drainage reaching up to 40% overnight. This kind of battery drainage while the phone is idle is highly abnormal.

The phone is almost behaving like its screen is left on the entire night. On the brighter side, looks like the cause of the issue is nothing too worrisome, though, and has a rather easy fix.

5G support is the main feature that sets the Google Pixel 5 apart from its previous generations. Ironically, though, this feature is also what seems to be the main culprit.

This can be turned off from your “Mobile network” settings under “Network and internet.” Simply change your “Preferred network type” to 4G.

So I’ve determined in my case why the battery drain. It’s 5g. I have access to 5g in my area, and it’s seems even if I’m connected to wifi it’ll still drain lots of battery. When i turn off 5g and only use 4g the phone battery is a dream!! So i guess I’m no longer going to use 5g anymore, just not worth the battery drain, unless they do some smart data mode like Apple that switches between 4g and 5g to save battery.
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However, if you don’t want to miss out on the glorious 5G network speeds, then you may skip this step and proceed to the other workarounds given below.

1. Disable “Mobile data always active”: If you use mobile data in conjunction with your WiFi, then turning this setting off is likely to make a noticeable difference. The toggle for this will be available under “Developer options.”

2. Pixel Ambient Services: A couple of users have also reported that a system app called “Pixel Ambient Services” was also draining a lot of battery for them. They seem to have identified this via the battery usage statistics.

You can try disabling it if it is behaving in a similar manner for you. To do that, just search it up on your app list and hit the disable button.

3. Naptime: Naptime lowers your device’s power consumption while the display is off by empowering Android’s built-in doze power saving functionality. Faster idle means less power being consumed unnecessarily.

This has been reported to make a difference by a couple of users on the forums, and you may give it a go too. To download, visit this Google Play Store link.

4. TuneIn Radio: TuneIn Radio application has also been reported to be a huge battery drainer by some users. You may check out its battery consumption from “Battery usage” under battery settings.

If it seems to be consuming unreasonable amounts of battery, then uninstalling it would help. You can also read about the same over here.

We are confident that one of the above workarounds will surely do the job for you. Even if they don’t, then you can expect a fix soon as the issue has been escalated.

Thank you for the addition information regarding disabling 5G.

I’ve escalated this thread in order to pass this along and to see what additional information we can find out.
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That being said, let us know in the comments below if the above workarounds did the job for the Pixel 5 battery drain issues. You may also inform us about any other fixes.

We previously highlighted that the Pixel 5’s battery drain issue was escalated. Following that, it appears that the team is already working on a fix.

Hi Pixel Community,
We are aware of this issue and a fix will be rolling out soon in a future Android update.
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However, it is important to highlight here that although the community specialist had not mentioned the December security update, it was rolled out soon after. But complaints have only continued subsequently.

Hence, we would like to know about your experience and if the December update did indeed address the matter. Feel free to inform us in the comments below.

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