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

[phillynews215]

TL;DR

• Some Pixel 11 owners are reporting excessive idle battery drain, with Wi-Fi showing unusually high battery usage.
• A detailed test found that certain routers repeatedly woke the phone, preventing it from sleeping properly.
• Switching to Wi-Fi 5 or another router dramatically improved battery life, but the exact cause remains unconfirmed.

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.




More...