Google Pixel: May 2025 updates could be causing unexpected battery drain on some smartphones

A few weeks have now passed since Google started distributing its May 2025 set of updates to Pixel smartphones. For context, the updates arrived as BP1A.250505.005 in the main. However, Google pushed this month's update as BD4A.250505.003 for the Pixel 9a (curr. $489 on Amazon).

Officially, Google claimed to have addressed a few bugs with both builds. Also, it stressed that BP1A.250505.005 serves as a point of no return for all Pixel 6 and Pixel 8 devices. An increasing amount of reports suggest that Google may shipped a bug or multiple bugs though, which are causing excessive battery drain across currently supported Pixel devices.

Typically, battery life can take a hit for a few hours or days after a smartphone has applied a new update. In principle, this is because a smartphone is optimising services on the fly, rather than all at once. Theoretically, this should reduce update times, albeit at the expense of slower performance too. While Google has not confirmed reports yet, we shall update this article if the company ever does so.