What’s happened? Google is cracking down on Android apps that cause excessive battery drain by rolling out a new metric and updated Play Store policy.
- Per the Android Developers Blog, the new metric is called “excessive partial wake locks.” It has recently graduated from beta.
- Google defines a user session as excessive if an app holds non-exempt wake locks for more than two cumulative hours in a 24-hour duration.
- If an app crosses the “bad behavior threshold,” i.e., if 5% or more of its user sessions over the last 28 days are “excessive” in nature, the app will be penalized starting March 1, 2026.
Why is this important? The penalization includes exclusion from the prominent discovery surfaces, such as recommendations in the Google Play Store. Furthermore, the app’s listing may display a red warning label that reads “This app may use more battery than expected due to high background activity.”
- Google has co-developed this metric along with Samsung, combining its Android platform data with Samsung’s real-world device and battery-related insights.
- Android developers can already access the new metric in the Android Vitals console and should make any required changes ahead of the March 1, 2026, deadline.
Why should I care? For those catching up, wake lock is a mechanism in Android phones that allows an application to keep your phone awake by accessing the screen, the CPU, or both, when you aren’t actively using it.
- While there are times when apps need to stay awake in the background (such as when you’re playing music with your phone’s screen off), a poorly designed app might abuse the wake lock functionality by holding it longer than necessary. This often results in excessive battery consumption.
- Given that battery drain is one of the most common issues for Android devices, the update to core metrics and Play Store policies will help address it on the developer side, while consumers can still implement additional battery-saving techniques.
- You’ll likely see warnings on Play Store listings about apps that use more battery than is necessary. Over time, the new metric will discourage apps from misbehaving, leading to better battery life for virtually all Android smartphones.
OK, what’s next? The addition will especially benefit users with an older or lower-sped Android smartphone.
- Google will enforce the new Play Store policy beginning March 2026, giving developers enough time to optimize their apps (also encouraging developer best practices).
- In the future, we could see more granular Android Vitals metrics to help reduce the number of low-quality apps on the Play Store.
