Australia made explicit risks of "fire and/or burns" for non-updated 4a models.
Pixel 4a, disassembled, with two fingers holding its battery above the front half. Pixel 4a, disassembled, with two fingers holding its battery above the front half.
Removing the Pixel 4a's battery can be painful, but not as painful as it would be if it caught on fire. Credit: iFixit
Google didn't explain exactly why it shipped a mandatory software update to the Pixel 4a, an Android phone from 2020, earlier this year. The nature of that update, which gave some models all but unusable battery life, provided some clues, as did later software analysis. But now, Australian authorities have provided a more concrete answer: battery overheating and fire risk.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's (ACCC) Product Safety arm issued a recall for the Pixel 4a late last week. The reason, the commission said, is that Google's firmware update and battery changes served to "mitigate the risk of overheating" because "an overheating battery could pose a risk of fire and/or burns to a user."
Product Safety Recall notice, with red border and triangle symbol, asking consumers "Do you own this product?" with an image of a Google Pixel 4a.
Do you own this product? Credit: ACCC Product Safety
In the US and elsewhere, Google's messaging did not use the term "recall." Google stated on its "Pixel 4a Battery Performance Program" page that "certain" Pixel 4a models "require a software update to improve the stability of their battery’s performance," which also "reduces available battery capacity and impacts charging performance." Google said it is still safe to charge a Pixel 4a.
Australia's notice does not offer any remedies beyond what Google has offered and functionally serves as notice that it's important to update the devices. The same support page for checking if your Pixel 4a is affected—and receiving a remedy in either payment, a battery replacement, or Google Store credit—is linked from the ACCC's web notice. Google's support page notes that its update and remedy options are separate from statutory rights provided in various countries.
Google's update to affected Pixel 4a devices drastically reduced their charging potential, essentially by half. One Ars staffer saw their Pixel 4a battery life drop to less than two hours on a full charge. Code in the updated Pixel 4a kernel, examined by noted hardware analyst Hector Martin, suggested that batteries had either "ATL" or "LSN" profiles. Those with the LSN tag—potentially the battery cell maker Lishen—had their charging capacities capped.
Ars has asked Google for comment on the Australian recall notice and its own support page and will update this post if we get a response.