Tech Desk 
Mar 11, 2025
In an unexpected turn of events, Australia has issued a recall for Pixel 4a phones reported to be affected by some battery-related issues.
The country issued a recall through the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission through a statement which read: "An automatic firmware update to Android 13 was rolled out to Pixel 4a devices in Australia on 8 January 2025. The firmware update provides new battery management features to mitigate the risk of overheating. An overheating battery could pose a risk of fire and/or burns to a user."
Detailing insights into what primarily prompted a recall, Android Authority claimed that thousands of Pixel 4a phones were said to be at a risk of overheating since January this year.
Google rolled out an update for Pixel 4a to address these issues, which instead aggravated the problem, although it touted the update as a Pixel 4a Battery Performance Program to improve "the stability of [the] battery's performance."
It's worth mentioning that this programme was designed not to let it happen by slightly diminishing the maximum voltage for units with power cells made by a supplier named Lishen. The trivial update, bringing unit voltage from 4.45V to 3.95V, dropped battery capacity by 50% for many users.
The biggest catch in the update was that not all Pixel 4a devices observed betterment. The search giant then admitted that some devices could experience a somewhat reduced battery health, and that was on the sideline of various issues brought by the Pixel update. These battery issues were believed to be enough to deserve a free battery replacement.
