After six months buried in snow, ice, and mud, a lost Pixel 6a is found. Did it turn on?
This is the season when many people living in the Northern Hemisphere are impacted by cold weather and snow. It's not a great time for smartphones either what with all of the slipping and sliding and falling on hard ice that many smartphone owners do. And then there is the poor Pixel 6a which was the star of a story that Google itself shared on its blog. This amazing tale of hope, strength, and survival began last February when Andrew Prag, owner of a mid-sized Pixel 6a, went skiing near his family in Serre Chevalier, France.
A Pixel 6a survives six months buried in snow, mud, and ice
You don't have to be psychic to figure out what happened to Prag or his Pixel 6a. On his last day skiing the mountain, Andrew lost his Pixel 6a in the snow. The unlucky Pixel 6a owner was able to geolocate the phone and planned a rescue mission for the very next day. But before he could save his phone, an overnight snowstorm pretty much wiped out any chance Andrew had to find his shivering cold Pixel 6a, drained of any power and heat provided by its now-dead battery.
A Pixel 6a after spending six months buried in the snow, mud, and ice. | Image credit-Google
This is the part of the story where the calendar starts spinning and months rip off the calendar. In other words, we now move ahead six months and Prag goes to visit his family near Serre Chevalier. While there, Prag decided to look for his Pixel 6a once again, this time with the snow melted. Many felt that Andrew should have just given up on finding his phone. But after poking around he found his Pixel 6a in the grass and wildflowers covered with mud.
Even after spending months buried under snow, ice, and mud, Prag's Pixel 6a started working as soon as it was plugged in. Andrew said that as soon as he plugged in the power cord and turned the phone on, it started working as though it had been just sitting in a desk drawer for all of these months. The amazing thing is that another Pixel 6a, this one owned by the daughter of a Googler, survived five days buried in the snow. Being in Battery Saver mode when gravity sent it tumbling toward the earth, the phone was discovered powered on!
"It happened to my daughter's Pixel this ski season. We were in Tahoe, and as she was going up the lift, she dropped her Pixel 6a into the snow. We didn't know exactly where it was. Five days later, the snow had melted more, and we were able to find it — the phone was actually still on in battery saver mode."-Ajay Kamath, head of Google's Product Integrity Engineering team
Ironically, Ajay Kamath, the father of the Pixel 6a owner who lost her phone in Tahoe, runs the team that puts Pixel phones through stress, temperature, and durability tests to determine how much the average Pixel handset can take. Kamath's team makes sure that Pixel phones can handle the typical day-to-day wear and tear. The Googler said, "We can't say Pixel phones will always survive in these extreme conditions, but I'm personally not surprised that some have."
The Pixel 6a could continue to receive Android system updates up to and including Android 18
While tests are run to determine how many times a Pixel tablet can be placed inside a backpack or removed from the bag before issues develop, other tests shake a Pixel device to see how long it will last. No matter how these tests are designed and how the Pixel units hold out, what happens in real life can never be known for sure. Google does take the Pixel models it tests to a temperature range of -22ºF (-30ºC) to 167ºF (75ºC) which might give a partial explanation as to why the two Pixel 6a units left out in horrible weather were able to survive.
"One of the most important pieces of feedback we provide to the design team is on what’s known as the design margin of the product. For example, we ask, 'How many more drops can this phone take? If 90% of users drop their phones a certain number of times a year, how can we build something that survives even more than that?' And these decisions are especially important as we build phones to last even longer."-Ajay Kamath, head of Google's Product Integrity Engineering team
If you own a Pixel handset, it's nice to know that your handset has a decent chance of surviving extreme weather conditions. Last month, Google officially announced that the Pixel 6 line, including the Pixel 6a, will get five years of Android updates that will take it to Android 17. If Android 18 is released before July 2027, the Pixel 6a might receive that update too. When the phone first was released, Google offered buyers only three years of system updates.
By the way, the Pixel 6a featured an IP67 rating which means that it is impervious to dust and can be submerged in clear water to a depth of nearly 3.28 feet for as long as 30 minutes.
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