Fairphone surprises Gen 6 owners with early Android 16 rollout

A couple of weeks ago, Android Authority broke that repairable smartphone maker Fairphone had committed to rolling out Android 16 to its latest Fairphone Gen 6 starting in April. Now, the company has confirmed that that rollout actually kicked off a little earlier.

Fairphone’s Android 16 rollout is in progress right now, having started on Monday, March 16. It’s the first Android version update for the Fairphone Gen 6, which is slated to get a total of seven OS updates.

The Android 16 update for the Fairphone Gen 6 is in keeping with Fairphone’s minimal OS tweaks. The new features on offer here are what’s baked into Android 16 itself, including better notification grouping, Live Updates notifications for certain ongoing activities, and the ability to remap a double-press of the power button to open Google Wallet.

This update is arriving ahead of schedule. Fairphone told Android Authority a couple of weeks back that Android 16 would start hitting the Fairphone Gen 6 beginning sometime next month.

An update to Android 16 at this stage is an expected move: the version started rolling out to Pixel phones in mid-2025 and hit Samsung’s phones with One UI 8 starting in September. Still, it’s nice to see a smaller phone maker like Fairphone keeping pace.

Android 16 is the first of seven pledged OS updates for the Fairphone Gen 6, meaning the phone should stay up to date through 2032. Here’s hoping the sustainability-focused manufacturer is able to get future updates out a bit quicker.