Summary
- Smart Pair earbuds may soon have alerts for battery charging completion.
- Many flagship earbuds lack sufficiently detailed battery level indication unless connected to a phone.
- Google is working on alerts for Fast Pair earbuds, with no official release date in sight yet.
Every smartphone, and even the best wireless earbuds, have an integrated low battery warning chime so you don’t abruptly run out of charge, even if you forget to check connected device battery levels on your phone. However, very few consumer tech gadgets alert you when the battery state of charge (SoC) reaches the limit, or a lower set threshold like 80%. To fix this, it appears Google is soon giving Smart Pair-enabled earbuds support for such alerts.
Related
What is Google Fast Pair and how to use it
It makes pairing Bluetooth devices to Android devices a breeze
Almost all flagship earbuds offer little to no indication of the battery level on the case, besides a little LED that blinks or changes colors. Most require a companion app, or rely on the Bluetooth protocol to transmit an approximate battery level to your phone, and just a chosen few offer a full readout on a display in the case. It is fine to track the power reserves when you’re using the buds, but when they are plugged in, it’s usually an approximation. With overcharging protection as standard, the risk is minimal anyway.
Reporting to Android Authority, popular Google app researcher and tipster @AssembleDebug on X found evidence of Google working on alerts for Fast Pair earbuds so you can unplug them as soon as they are fully charged. Code strings seen below exist in the Google Play Services beta version 25.03.32, but couldn’t be activated to see the UI components.
The feature is still in development
Not Google’s first rodeo
While the lack of a UI at this stage is indicative of ongoing and incomplete development, the tipster notes this isn’t Google’s first time implementing such a feature. Since last year, the Pixel Watch notifies your paired smartphone when it is done charging. Unlike this alert delivered through the Google Pixel Watch app, which makes the feature Google-exclusive, Fast Pair alerts will work for all compatible devices irrespective of make, since it will be a Play Services update.
While this interesting update could be a great quality-of-life change for earbud users, there’s no telling when Google will add the finishing touches. We will keep you posted on any developments, though.