What you need to know
- In the latest Android 16 beta 3, the battery icon features a dynamic color scheme, changing to red when the battery is low and vibrant green when charging.
- The traditional five-segment Wi-Fi signal indicator is also reduced to three segments offering a streamlined appearance.
- These visual updates are found hidden in the latest beta and are not enabled by default and might change before the official release.
Android 16 is the next awaited operating system release from Google, and the search giant has already rolled out betas for its Pixel phones. New findings from the latest beta suggest that we could be seeing significant changes in UI elements starting with the battery icon.
According to Mishaal Rahman’s findings (via Android Authority), Google seems to be working on new status bar icons with the upcoming Android 16 operating system. The latest Android 16 beta 3 has shown Rahman some changes to the status bar icons, which indicate Wi-Fi signal strength and battery level.
The Wi-Fi icon, over the years, has showcased five segments indicating the signal strength, which is now being shifted to only three segments. It seems to be a nifty little change with the upcoming Android 16. Similarly, the battery icon has remained unchanged for quite some time now, which appears to be notably changing its colors this time.
Rahman notes that the white background on the battery icon will now have a dynamic color scheme. Solid white remains in the background when the phone’s battery is fully or sufficiently charged. It will turn red when the battery is too low and not charging. However, the other significant change happens to be when the Android phone is charging because it now showcases a vibrant green color.
Furthermore, the battery icon is also flipped to a horizontal orientation as opposed to the previous iteration, which had a vertical orientation. Also, there is a new, bolder font for the battery level percentage indication. These new status bar icons aren’t enabled by default in the Android 16 beta 3 and are enabled manually, which could mean that it could still be in the testing phase and may or may not make it live when the official version rolls out.
It isn’t the first time that Google has tested the revamp of status bar icons, including the battery. Last April, Android 15’s developer preview also suggested a possible revamp happening to the status bar icons. However, the revamped battery icon didn’t make it to the stable Android 15 release later.