In recognition that excessive battery drain is top of mind for Android users, Google has been taking significant steps to help developers build more power-efficient apps. On March 1st, 2026, Google Play Store began rolling out the wake lock technical quality treatments to improve battery drain. This treatment will roll out gradually to impacted apps over the following weeks. Apps that consistently exceed the "Excessive Partial Wake Lock" threshold in Android vitals may see tangible impacts on their store presence, including warnings on their store listing and exclusion from discovery surfaces such as recommendations.
Users may see a warning on your store listing if your app exceeds the bad behavior threshold.
This initiative elevated battery efficiency to a core vital metric alongside stability metrics like crashes and ANRs. The "bad behavior threshold" is defined as holding a non-exempted partial wake lock for at least two hours on average while the screen is off in more than 5% of user sessions