Pixel 11 battery drain could have an unexpected culprit: Your Wi-Fi router

Pixel owners are no strangers to battery-life complaints, and Google’s Tensor era has had its share of heat, modem, and efficiency problems. The Pixel 11 series looked like a step forward, especially with its new MediaTek modem, but some owners are now chasing a different kind of drain. A detailed Reddit investigation suggests certain Wi-Fi routers may be keeping Pixel 11 phones awake far more often than they should.

Reddit user Albamen13 noticed their Pixel 11 Pro XL losing roughly 2.5% to 3% battery per hour while sitting idle on Wi-Fi. Using BetterBatteryStats, they found that Wi-Fi activity was waking the phone about 135 times per minute, preventing it from properly going to sleep for 59% to 67% of the test.

Initially, Wi-Fi 6 looked guilty. Switching the same Tenda Wi-Fi 6 mesh system from Wi-Fi 6 to Wi-Fi 5 cut those Wi-Fi wakeups from about 135 per minute to 2.4, while the time the phone failed to sleep properly fell to around 1%. An overnight test produced similar results, with idle drain dropping to about 1% per hour.

However, further testing complicated that theory. Connecting the same Pixel to a HUAWEI Wi-Fi 6 router produced only 5.4 wakeups per minute and 0.8% failed suspend time. Other commenters also reported normal behavior on some ASUS Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 7 setups. That points less to Wi-Fi 6 itself and more toward a possible compatibility problem between Pixels and certain router firmware or settings. Reports in the thread mention Tenda, TP-Link Omada, and Fritz!Box hardware, although the sample is far too small for firm conclusions.

Crucially, nobody appears to have repeated the same tests with another phone on the affected router, so we can’t say whether the Pixel or router is ultimately mishandling the interaction.

The complaints aren’t isolated to Reddit. A few-weeks-old Pixel Community thread includes Pixel 11 Pro owners reporting unusually high Wi-Fi battery usage, with one user saying the problem varies by network. The reports also suggest the idle battery drain goes beyond the Pixel 11 series.

Google has just rolled out Android 17 QPR1, and owners are already reporting various post-update issues. However, this Wi-Fi complaint predates that release, so there’s no evidence QPR1 caused it.

For now, switching an affected router to Wi-Fi 5 may help. The Reddit user has reported the findings to Google, but Google hasn’t confirmed a Pixel-side bug. We’ve also reached out to Google for comment on the reports and will update this article if we hear back.