Android 15 is getting closer to a full release following the availability of Android 15 Beta 3 earlier this week. While the main focus of the current beta has been to deliver platform stability so that app makers can ready their software for the full release, new features continue to pop up in the Android update.
One of those is an adaptive timeout, as spotted by Phone Arena. Back in April, early developer previews of Android 15 indicated that an adative timeout feature would be a part of the update, delivering an upgraded screen timeout controls.
Currently, Android phones have a featured called Screen Attention. This feature tracks how long your phone has been inactive and automatically locks the device after a set time.
Adaptive timeout is supposed to automatically turn the screen off early if you're not using the device. As an example, if you were to put your phone down, the screen would quickly turn off rather than waiting for the Screen Attention tool to kick in.
In April, we weren't sure how this feature would work, but we assumed it would involve the front camera on your phone or some kind of Face ID technology. That appears to be the case with the Android 15 beta 3 implementation of adaptive timeout, with timeout controls ranging from 15 seconds to 30 minutes.
Still, as of this writing, it's not entirely clear how the feature will work in the Android 15 beta 3 build. As reported by 9to5 Google, early testing has had a hard time getting adaptive timing to fully work. In some cases, the Pixel phones used to test the feature kept defaulting to the standard screen attention tool that already exists.
Hopefully, Google gets adaptive timeout working along with the other quality-of-life features that have appeared in Android 15 beta releases. Extending battery life is always necessary especially as more powerful, hungry processing chips eat away at the phone battery.
Currently, there is no set release date for Android 15's final build but with version 3, though Google's timeline would seem to indicate a release toward the end of summer.
