Mobile devices like Windows 11 laptops use batteries for power. Keeping an eye on the remaining battery is essential to avoid unexpected system shutdowns due to a lack of power.
Modern mobile devices support battery saving modes. These are designed to save battery while the device is idle or in use. Common tweaks include reducing the screen brightness, powering down devices, or limiting background activity.
Up until now, Windows’ energy saver mode was either turned on or off. Microsoft has started a trial to change that.
What is the adaptive energy saver? It is a new, opt-in mode, for Windows 11 devices that have a battery. The feature enables energy saving automatically to conserve energy, even while the battery is not particularly low.
This happens without changing the brightness of the screen and is based “on the power state of the device and the current system load”. So, I assume this means that if the load is light, Windows 11 might turn on energy saving mode for a bit to save energy. Once more resources are required, it may turn off energy saving mode again.
How this actually works remains to be seen. Since this feature is introduced in test builds. expect some tweaking and testing to find out how well it works.
The feature is disabled by default and in testing in the latest insider builds of Windows 11 only (where it may be enabled for some for testing). You find it under Settings > System > Power & battery. There, under Energy saver, set “always use energy saver” to adaptive to use it.
Both Android and iOS support adaptive power or battery options. Some Android devices support adaptive power saving, which dynamically adjusts power-settings like the screen brightness based on user behavior. Apple introduced adaptive power in iOS 26, which makes slight performance adjustments to extend battery life.
This is silly adaptive energy saving is not really needed. The current battery saving setting is just fine. Microsoft should spend more time fixing the OS, then doing unnecessary things like this.
If this “Adaptive Energy Saver” works anything like all previous “Energy Saver” functionality in Windows it will mean LESS Energy Saving and MORE problems specifically related to the “new features”
In my experience Microsoft’s “Energy Saving” generally means unexpected disconnections from WiFi and Bluetooth devices (laptop OR desktop) or errors writing to external USB devices (laptops under battery-power) because the “Energy Saver” routines incorrectly determine that a device can be powered down because it has not been used for a short while (which seems to be measured in seconds – or milliseconds – not minutes)