Google to limit apps that drain smartphone battery

Google has announced its multi-year plan to provide developers with more data and tools to monitor their apps' resources. The main innovation will be the "excessive wake locks" metric in the Android Vitals panel in the Google Play Console, which will record cases when the total duration of partial wake locks exceeds three hours within 24 hours.

Android Police writes about it.

Android apps will consume less battery power

Android Vitals currently tracks how long an app holds a wake lock in the background without an active foreground service. However, sudden, excessive wake locks remain the main cause of unexpected battery drain. To find the source of the problem, Google is already working with several smartphone manufacturers, including Samsung, to combine their expertise and telemetry.

Developers can read the new documentation on the metric and share their feedback: only after collecting enough feedback will the metric move from beta to public. In the future, Google plans to add other metrics to Android Vitals to highlight critical performance issues and help users choose energy-saving apps on Google Play.

As a reminder, users are used to seeing the notification "System updated" on their Android smartphone screen and thinking that everything is fine. However, sometimes important updates are hidden behind the scenes and go unnoticed.

We also wrote that users appreciate Android for its openness and personalisation possibilities, but often the default shells have certain limitations. There are several proven tools that can help you significantly update the look of your system.