Android Addressing ‘excessive’ Battery Drain With New App Wake Locks Metric

Given how excessive battery drain is one “one of the most significant frustrations for Android users,” Google is starting a new effort to help developers optimize the wake lock behavior of their apps.

Partial wake locks are a mechanism… that lets developers keep the CPU running after a device’s display turns off (whether due to system timeout or the user pressing the power button)… Excessive use of partial wake locks drains the device’s battery because it prevents the device from entering lower power states.

To address this issue, Google is introducing a new “excessive wake locks” metric as part of Android Vitals in the Play Console that developers have access to. “Excessive” is defined as “when all of the partial wake locks, added together, run for more than 3 hours in a 24-hour period.”

The current iteration of excessive wake lock metrics tracks time only if the wake lock is held when the app is in the background and does not have a foreground service.

Google is working with Samsung and other top OEMs on this effort: “Samsung is excited to collaborate with Android and Google Play on these new performance metrics. By sharing our user experience insights, we aim to help developers build truly optimized apps that deliver exceptional performance and battery life across the ecosystem. We believe this collaboration will lead to a more consistent and positive experience for all Android users.”

There’s new developer documentation that provides “clear guidance on interpreting the metrics.” Google has also updated its general wake lock documentation with “effective wake lock implementation strategies and best practices.”

We highly encourage developers to check out this page and provide feedback with their use case on this new metric. Your input is invaluable in refining these metrics before their general availability.

That form is available here. Google’s goal is to “provide comprehensive, fleet-wide visibility into performance and battery life, equipping developers with the data needed to diagnose and resolve performance bottlenecks.”

It’s currently in beta, with Google “actively seeking feedback on the metric definition and how it aligns with your app’s use cases.” Once launched, Google will “explore Play Store treatments to help users choose apps that meet their needs.” 

Later this year, Google may “introduce additional metrics in Android vitals highlighting additional critical performance issues.”

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