New Google Play Policy to Conserve Smartphone Battery Life

Starting March 1, 2026, Google Play will enact new rules affecting apps that unnecessarily drain smartphone batteries.
According to Google, these changes are driven by a new metric for excessive "wake locks". Wake locks allow apps like Spotify to play music in the background even when the smartphone screen is off. However, if misused, this can have a detrimental effect on battery life.
As defined by the company, a session will be deemed "excessive" if it contains more than 2 hours of total wake lock time within a 24-hour period.
"Such excessive sessions significantly drain battery life. Wake locks are considered improper if they are not system locks after sleep that provide clear user benefits that cannot be further optimized, such as audio playback or user-initiated data transfer," states Google's blog.
Apps that exceed the harmful behavior threshold for wake locks will face penalties. Specifically, they will be less promoted in recommendations, and users will be shown warnings about the risk of rapid battery drain when downloading the app.