Google's new patent: Future Pixel phones could save battery while displaying images

Google’s latest Pixel phone, the Pixel 9 family, arrived not too long ago with a lot of new AI smarts in mind. It comes with a pretty impressive battery life at 4,700mAh that lasts a little over 13 hours too that outlast some of its competitors, according to various tests.

And now, a recently published patent by Google reveals a new way for future Pixel phones to save their battery even better, especially when you’re viewing an image.

The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) published a 13-page document that details this new system, which was filed in June 2024 but published recently on October 17, 2024. According to Google, this new system automatically adjusts the brightness of different areas of the image based on whatever you’re focusing on.

Here are some of the sketches from the technical document:

The device looks at an image and creates a bionic image based on its on-pixel ratio (OPR). It then combines this bionic image with the original image to make a new one, which is shown on the screen. This new image keeps bright areas bright while dimming less important parts, helping to use less power.

Usually, viewing an image on a phone can drain the battery because each pixel on the screen needs the power to emit light. Brighter images logically mean more energy, and vice versa, and if the display continuously refreshes the image (like viewing a video, for example), it also uses even more power.

So will this feature arrive on future Pixel phones? Well, take patent applications with a grain of salt. It is a possibility. But, it’s also common for tech companies to file a patent application just to prevent other competitors from using the same idea/tech.