See the Battery Status of Those You're Tracking on Google Maps

If you rely on Google Maps to help you get where you want to go or to meet with someone at a specific location, it includes a very useful feature: real-time location sharing, which allows you to share your location with others for a specific period of time.

Now it looks like information shared will soon include battery status.

When a location is shared with you, the other person's location can be seen on the map. The other person can also set an estimated time of arrival. Android Police checked out the latest Google Maps v9.71 beta to see what they could find, and found indicators for battery level and charging status.

If enabled, it would communicate the level of battery and the charging status of the person's phone you are following in Google Maps. The information would be presented as, "Matthew's battery level is between 50 percent and 75 percent and is charging." So it would also communicate when it isn't charging and when the battery is very low.

Such a feature is very useful if the person you are meeting forgot to charge their phone and therefore doesn't have very much battery life left. Their phone could die before you meet, but if you were tracking their location and knew about the battery status, then you wouldn't be as concerned if they disappear off the map because you'd know the likely reason why.

For now, the battery stats feature is only in beta and not yet enabled in Google Maps.