Charging "hesitation" with Pixel Here's an odd bit of behavior I'm seeing from my refurbished Pixel:

When I plug it in using the rapid charger that came with it, it at first immediately shows as charging. Then stops less than a second later. Then starts less than a second after that. Stops. (This may repeat five or six times.) Then finally goes to "Charging Rapidly".

It never fails to start charging, nor do I see this from other chargers which, admittedly, don't have the same amperage and so don't kick things up to rapid charging.

Normal? A minor quirk? Or have I got a defective model1?

Notes:


I did not see this with my original Pixel; only with the refurb
This is the charger and cable that came with the original
None of the other chargers I have have enough wattage to kick the Pixel into "Charge Rapidly" mode
It doesn't always do it, but I saw it stop-and-start a dozen times, once


1 Again! I'm on my second unit because the first suddenly stopped recognizing the headphone jack and the microphone stopped working.
Normal? A minor quirk? Or have I got a defective model?


Not normal - it's not the expected behaviour

It is more likely a quirk , being a one time occurrence , not noticed since nor on your previous device


What may have caused it?
Firstly, being a one off occurrence, it is non – reproducible ruling out further investigations to establish the reason.  My best guess is this :

From Andrew's answer , to a related question, the charging speed indication is


....based on power (in milliWatt) it receives. As shown on the commit log, &quot;Charging speed based on voltage&quot;, from the same config.xml file,

&lt;!-- Threshold in micro watts below which a charger is rated as &quot;slow&quot;; 1A @ 5V --&gt;
&lt;integer name=&quot;config_chargingSlowlyThreshold&quot;&gt;5000000&lt;/integer&gt;
&lt;!-- Threshold in micro watts above which a charger is rated as &quot;fast&quot;; 1.5A @ 5V  --&gt;
&lt;integer name=&quot;config_chargingFastThreshold&quot;&gt;7500000&lt;/integer&gt;



Charging slowly: &lt; 5W
Charging: 5W - 7.5W
Charging rapidly: &gt; 7.5W



In your case, the hesitation you refer to , indicates that power received by the device varied casuing it to fluctuate between Charging -stop- charging rapidly . This may have been caused by loose contact of the USB (on either end ),  pocket lint or dirt preventing proper contact or power fluctuations at source ( voltage fluctuations ).

Edit: Note that that difference between Charging upper limit ( = 7.5 W ) and Charging rapidly ( &gt; 7.5 W ) is borderline (unlike Charging slowly  &lt; 5 W), so intermittent poor connection or marginal fluctuation in input power is enough to have caused this
Next steps

You would need to pay attention to see if it happens again, which then would be a cause for concern as reported in Google forums - Pixel and Charging Problem and elsewhere on Internet. Solutions offered there have mixed results

If these solutions, don't help, my suggestion would be to change the cable and charger  (see related question  at bottom ) - simply because , they are more likely to fail rather than the device itself being the culprit ( probability wise , from experience  and information on Internet)


Should this behaviour be  a cause for worry? -  No. Since it has not been observed since.  If I were in your place, I would anyway buy, spare accessories , just to have peace of mind and use the current ones as back up (doesn't hurt to have spares) , especially it being a top end device.
Related How to select a Non OEM USB Type C charger or cable for my device?