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3h ago

Google Rolls Out Battery-Drain Metric in Android Vitals, Play Store Warnings Start in 2026

Google defines excess as more than two hours of non‑exempt background wake locks in a day.

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A battery usage chart on the Google Pixel 9a, showing the progression of battery life across a few days.
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Google’s latest Android vitals update introduces a metric that tracks “excessive partial wake locks.”

Overview

  • The new excessive partial wake locks metric is now generally available to developers in Android Vitals after a beta co-developed with Samsung.
  • Apps cross the bad-behavior line if at least 5% of user sessions over 28 days exceed the threshold, triggering alerts in Play Console.
  • Starting March 1, 2026, titles that fail the threshold may lose placement on prominent recommendation surfaces and may carry a red battery‑drain warning on their listings.
  • Android Vitals adds a wake lock names table with P90/P99 durations to pinpoint problematic tags, with Google advising investigation of tags over 60 minutes at P90 or P99.
  • The metric joins Google Play’s core technical quality signals alongside crash and ANR rates and existing wearable battery checks such as the 4.44% per hour watch‑face limit.