Google quietly released to the Play store the battery app found on Pixel and Nexus devices. The app already comes preloaded on Google’s own hardware and is supposed to help the user manage battery life better than before.
The Device Health Services app will show you what apps kill your battery life and offer various options to help you improve it. But just because it’s an app Google created for its own hardware, don’t expect to install it on your current Android handset.
Just like with any other Google app released to the Play store, the Device Health Services app is in there to help Google update it without updating the entire operating system. That means Google can improve the performance of the battery management app without having to issue Android updates just for that purpose.
So if your future Pixel 2 phone will experience any battery problems, Google may quickly address them using the software. The phone isn’t available yet in stores, and the app’s release has nothing to do with the Pixel 2 launch.
First found by Redditors, the app will work with older Nexus devices even if they’re not updated to Android 8.0 Oreo. Apparently, the app is compatible with the Nexus 5, a phone that wasn’t even updated to Android Nougat.
Finally, the app might not show up in worldwide Google Play stores for the time being, but it’ll certainly get there. So once you receive update prompts on your Nexus or Pixel phone, you should definitely update Device Health Services to the latest version.
