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Apple iOS devices display the following warning and suspend operation should they overheat:

Temperature

[iDevice] needs to cool down before you can use it.

Does the Android OS contain similar functionality?

(For reference, I'm using a Nexus 7, running stock Android 4.2.2 without root or unlocked bootloader. However, this question is intended to be device-agnostic. I have not experienced any overheating—the tablet does get warm under load but by no means excessively so. I'm just wondering if any protection exists at the system software level in stock Android.)

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  • At least it did not a while ago -- watch the grill-contest on Youtube: Android, WinPho7, iPhone4... What Grills Faster?
    – Izzy ♦
    May 18, 2013 at 18:23
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    Do note that the Nexus 4 will gracefully shut down automatically upon overheating: apktopsites.com/…
    – bwDraco
    May 18, 2013 at 18:39
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    The kernel takes care of that along with the appropriate battery driver for that chipset. All batteries do generate an amount of heat, more so when the device is overworking, common on single cpu chipsets - try playing angry birds on 600Mhz MSM7227 chipset - can have a nice fry up on the back of the device.... :D
    – t0mm13b
    May 18, 2013 at 23:12
  • I once caused the processor on my openSUSE desktop to overheat. The system went through the shutdown sequence normally, with the following text in the log: Critical temperature reached (73 C), shutting down
    – bwDraco
    May 19, 2013 at 0:01
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    Overheating protection is kernel's task. Linux kernel does have overheating protection, however it relies on the temperature sensor driver working correctly. So on devices that doesn't have CPU temperature sensor or one whose drivers doesn't work correctly, there may still be a melt down. Note that some CPU also have built in overheat protection circuits that does not rely on software. However those hardware protection mechanism are generally only guaranteed to work when not overclocked and under normal operating condition.
    – Lie Ryan
    Jun 24, 2013 at 1:09

3 Answers 3

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Within the BatteryManager documentation for Android there is a constant that can be used to check against that is named BATTERY_HEALTH_OVERHEAT. This would lead me to assume that there is a check that the OS does against this value, though I have never personally experienced a warning like this. I did on my old iPad, but being a recent Android convert I haven't had the time to find out about this just yet.

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Provided it can read the CPU temperature, the Linux kernel will detect an overheat condition and gracefully shut down the device in the event overheating occurs. However, Android does not contain built-in mechanisms that selectively disable components or reduce heating in the manner iOS does, such as by dimming or turning off the screen, stopping charging, reducing the power of the cell antenna, or disabling the camera flash.

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There is an app called Battery Protector by Apphibios. You can set whatever temp you want it to give you an alarm. I think 104f is about where you want to let it cool off.

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