Samsung makes a U-turn, revives a lost One UI battery feature

Samsung made a notable change to its battery menu on One UI 6, as it ditched the “since last charge” metric. This made it more difficult for people to gauge their phone’s battery life. Now, it looks like the company has revived the option.

X tipster Tarun Vats reports that Samsung has revived the “since last charge” option as part of an update to its Device Care app (version 13.8.6.11). The update is available via APKMirror, although you can wait for the update to hit the Galaxy Store if you don’t want to dabble with sideloading.

As the name implies, the “since last charge” option tracks a device’s battery level and screen-on time since it was last charged. This makes for a more useful metric than the previous option, which measured battery life over the last 24 hours regardless of charging. 

Either way, we’re glad to see Samsung bringing this feature back to its smartphones. We’re guessing the fact that this is a Device Care update means that almost any phone running One UI 6 will see this tweak. 

Samsung wasn’t the only brand to remove this feature and then make a 180 in recent years, though. The likes of Google, Xiaomi, and others also ditched the “since last charge” metric a few years ago before reviving it — presumably because they realized it was a useful feature that people really wanted.