Like it or not, Google will throttle your Pixel 10a battery and charging speed over time

Google introduced a Battery Health Assistance (BHA) feature to its phones last year, which reduces your phone’s effective battery capacity and charging speed over time. The feature is optional on older Pixels, but Google made this mandatory on its 2025 phones. Unfortunately, there’s bad news if you were hoping for optional throttling on the Pixel 10a.

Google confirmed during a media briefing that the Pixel 10a’s Battery Health Assistance feature can’t be turned off. This is a stage-based process that kicks in after 200 cycles, with maximum throttling taking place after 1,000 cycles.

All smartphone batteries degrade over time. For example, many Samsung phones are rated for 2,000 charging cycles before dropping to 80% effective capacity. Meanwhile, Google’s recent phones, including the Pixel 10a, are rated for 1,000 charging cycles before reaching 80% capacity. However, Battery Health Assistance appears to be an artificial degradation process on top of this standard degradation.

Battery Health Assistance first arrived after older Pixel-A phones suffered from major battery defects last year. Some Pixel 4a and Pixel 6a models were at risk of battery overheating, while at least five Pixel 6a units actually caught fire. The problems didn’t stop here, as some Pixel 7a units experienced battery swelling issues.

So it certainly seems like Battery Health Assistance is meant to mitigate these long-term issues and any other battery-related problems that might appear down the line. A more reliable battery via software optimizations is a good thing, but the fact that this feature is mandatory on recent Pixels isn’t ideal by any measure. A better solution would be for Google to make this feature optional, as it does with adaptive charging and other battery health features. That’s in addition to fixing any hardware issues in the first place.

Just out of curiosity, we also asked other manufacturers whether their phones had an equivalent to Battery Health Assistance. Most brands haven’t responded to us just yet, but Motorola has confirmed to Android Authority that it doesn’t have a similar feature on its phones. Instead, the company pointed to its Overcharge Protection feature, which caps the device charge at 80%. In other words, the Google feature might not be widespread across the smartphone industry.