Users of Pixel 4a smartphones have seen their battery capacity drastically impacted by their forced update on January 8, 2025. The French NGO HOP (Stop Planned Obsolescence) has received almost 2,500 reports, in which consumers share their distress. This prompted our NGO, which fights against all forms of planned obsolescence, to address the issue.
Today, Stop Planned Obsolescence and its lawyers are sending an open letter to Google.
Alerted back in January by a large number of users, the NGO is dealing with the worrying case of this sudden malfunctioning of Google’s Pixel 4a smartphones, since the automatic software update launched on January 8, 2025.
The Facts
Back in January, many Google Pixel 4a users noticed that their smartphone’s battery autonomy had suddenly dropped to a handful of hours, that it was struggling to recharge, and that global smartphone operation was slowing down. The reason? An automatic update of their operating system, imposed by Google, which announced a stabilization of battery performance and presented as necessary.
In a press release published on January 6, 2025, Google detailed the update launched on January 8, 2025. While the company announced that “he battery may last for shorter periods between charges,” users had no choice regarding this update. They could not anticipate the extent of the malfunctions it would cause.
The terms of compensation offered by the US-based company are unacceptable for French consumers.
- Option 1: free battery repair (but only in some countries: Germany, Canada, the USA, Singapore, India and the UK) is inaccessible to many customers, especially French ones.
- Option 2: a USD 50 compensation, subject to the creation of an account with the US online bank Payoneer, involving the sharing of personal information and bank charges.
- Option 3: a USD 100 voucher to be spent on the Google Store, where the cheapest phone is €449.
Over 2,500 reports to Stop Planned Obsolescence
Stop Planned Obsolescence, whose mission is to challenge all forms of planned obsolescence, including software obsolescence, has received 2,480 reports of malfunctions that started immediately after Google’s latest update of these smartphones.
Today, in an open letter, we are asking Google to fix this situation by allowing affected users to downgrade to a previous OS.
We call on the American brand to take urgent actions to control the negative consequences on users and the environment of the forced Pixel 4a update.
