Google has recently announced the implementation of new guidelines for Android applications that misuse activation during standby mode, effective March 1, 2026. These applications, which have a detrimental impact on battery life, will now be flagged in the Google Play Store, and will no longer be recommended.
Apps that exceed a specific threshold for awakenings in the smartphone’s inactive state will now display a warning on their download page. This threshold is determined by the usage of the Wake Lock mechanism in the PowerManager API, which allows apps to prevent the device from sleeping and continue functioning in the background even when the screen is off.
In collaboration with Samsung, Google has developed a telemetry metric to evaluate the misuse of Wake Lock. It has been decided that any application remaining in the Wake Lock state for more than 2 hours within a 24-hour period is deemed unacceptable. This calculation excludes instances where the API is used for tasks like playing music, accessing location data, or invoking actions through the JobScheduler API.
If Wake Lock abuse is detected in over 5% of app sessions on all devices within a 28-day period, a warning may be added to the Play Store. Furthermore, the presence of this warning label could impact the application’s visibility and ranking in the store.
