Pixel 7 and 6 units have been overheating, but Google has a fix for that

Google Pixel 7 review in hand
The Google Pixel 7 (Image credit: Future / Alex Walker-Todd)

Over the last few days, a growing number of Google Pixel 7 and Pixel 6 users (including owners of the Pro models) have reported that their phones are overheating and suffering from drastically reduced battery life.

That sounds like quite the problem, especially as battery life isn’t amazing on these phones to begin with. But Google has been quick to respond, as posting on the company’s support site, a community manager has said the following:

“We have received reports of Android devices becoming overheated and seeing accelerated battery drain. We identified the root cause of the issue being a recent Google app backend change that unintentionally resulted in these issues. We have rolled out a fix that should begin to take effect for impacted users immediately. No user action is needed.”

So, within a few days, Google has both acknowledged and seemingly fixed the issue, which is impressively fast, at least. It sounds from the statement like the fix should automatically be applied to the Google app, which has been identified as the culprit, so if you’re still having issues, you probably won’t do for much longer.

The latest in a long line of Pixel problems

Sadly, this isn’t the first issue that Pixel phone users have reported. In fact, the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro were so plagued with bugs that we dedicated an entire guide to fixing or working around them.

Those initial bugs now have official fixes (for the most part), and the Google Pixel 7 series hasn’t been quite as issue-ridden, but these phones still seem to have more than their fair share of problems, with Android Authority collating a list of over a dozen Pixel 7 bugs.

No phone lands bug-free, but Google’s recent handsets seem to have more of them than the majority of the best phones. So it’s a good thing the company also seems quick to respond to the more serious ones, at least in the case of the issue above.

James Rogerson

James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at TechRadar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.