Google can remotely change your Pixel or Pie phone's settings, and it's done by mistake – BGR

Count on Google to continually raise the bar of fluidity, because the giant technology company has made a mistake that it will soon explain to users of Android. Many Android phone owners who upgraded their devices to Android 9.0 Pie woke up with phones whose battery saving mode was enabled even though they were fully charged. Google has caused everything, and it's not just the Pixel phones that are affected.

Google is testing something internally on Android 9.0 phones, which is related to battery life – and remote control of devices that already use Pie without users knowing.

First detailed on Reddit, the problem seemed strange. After all, Pie has been out for a few weeks now and we would have heard about this battery-saving mode bug earlier. But as Android font reports, it only happened Thursday night, with a lot of Android 9.0 users reporting the problem. It's not just the Pixel and Pixel 2 owners who have experienced it, but also those who own OnePlus, Essential, Nokia and any other Android phone that has already received some kind of Pie update, including beta versions.

Google explained what happened on Reddit, suggesting that everything is fine:

Hello everyone, some of you may have noticed that the battery saver was automatically activated. This was an in-house experiment to test the battery-saving features deployed by mistake to more users than expected. We have now restored the battery saver settings to their default value. Please configure as you wish. Sorry for the confusion.

This response only raised more questions about Google's ability to remotely control devices without informing users or obtaining their express consent. Google may be controlling battery settings through Google Play Services, which appears to have a default enabled permission to allow the app to change system settings. But, as a Reddit user says, this remains a problem:

We are talking about parameters. Google is able to change MY settings, MY settings profile and write new MY settings. It's amazing. That's too much. I know that Google is able to check / read and know my settings, but why they can change my settings. The next time Google turns off my pixel. I am very angry about it.

Google will probably follow up with more explanations to put your mind at ease now that it has unlocked this new level of fright.