Running low on battery juice is one of the most frustrating problems on a Windows laptop. To combat this, Microsoft offers an Energy Saver mode that tries to keep the charge alive. But that option dims your screen, making it more difficult to see, especially in low-light conditions. Now Microsoft has a new trick up its sleeve that aims to preserve your battery without affecting your screen brightness.
Introducing Adaptive Energy Saver
Currently rolling out as a preview to Windows 11 Insiders is a new tool known as Adaptive Energy Saver, Microsoft said in a Friday blog post. With this opt-in feature enabled, your laptop can automatically turn Energy Saver on and off based on factors such as the power state of your PC and the current system load, and it does this without changing the display brightness so you can still see your screen as you normally would.
Also: 9 settings I changed on my Windows 11 PC to maximize the battery life
As Adaptive Energy Saver is experimental, the option is currently available only in the Canary channel of the latest Windows 11 Insider build. This channel is designed for Windows testers who don’t mind some instability in their preview builds if it means trying out features early in the development stage.
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Microsoft
How the experimental feature works
For now, the new mode is gradually rolling out, which means you may or may not see it even if you’re set up with the Canary channel. To check, update your Windows 11 system to the new build. Then head to Settings, select System, and click Power & Battery. Select the drop-down menu for Energy Saver. If the feature is available, you’ll see a new option called Adaptive. Choose that one, then run your laptop on battery power to see if and how it works.
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Other test features
Beyond Adaptive Energy Saver, Microsoft has unveiled other test features in the latest Canary build for Windows 11.
A mode called Taskbar Icon Scaling automatically shrinks the size of the icons on the taskbar if it starts to get too crowded. The new Quick Machine Recovery will try to repair Windows in the event of a boot failure. Plus, Microsoft has tweaked the Voice Access and Narrator tools for people who want to dictate commands or hear the screen spoken aloud.
Since the Canary channel is experimental, you wouldn’t want to install this build on a production Windows 11 computer. Instead, use a spare PC or a virtual environment. For example, I run the Windows Insider builds on VMs through VMware Workstation Pro, which allows me to test them without any impact on my host Windows environment.
In its blog post, Microsoft didn’t say when these features might wind up in the regular version of Windows 11. As they are currently in the Canary channel, you’ll likely have to wait at least several months for them to officially launch.
