Summary
- Google is tackling Android battery drain by introducing a new metric to track excessive wake locks in apps.
- Collaboration with smartphone manufacturers like Samsung will enhance app optimization to improve battery life.
- Available in beta, developers are encouraged to test it out and provide feedback to Google.
Have you ever grabbed your Android phone and noticed the battery is unusually low or dying too fast, only to check settings and find some random app waking up your device? You’re not alone, which is why Google is taking a proactive approach to try and fix it.
Apps randomly draining battery life isn’t a new problem, and I’m constantly disabling or uninstalling apps to try and squeeze as much life out of each charge as possible. If that sounds familiar, you’ll love the latest news from Google. The company announced an all-new “multi-year plan” that aims to give developers all the tools they need to improve battery life and consumption. The Android Vitals dashboard in the Google Play console, an area developers use frequently, will have a new “excessive wake locks” metric that tracks how often an app partially wakes up a phone. The idea here is to track 24-hour periods, and any app with multiple wake locks that combine for more than three hours will get a usage report.
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As you can imagine, any app randomly waking up your device and its processor for more than 3 hours is killing battery life. Currently, the Vitals dashboard only tracks wake lock hold times (how long the app keeps things awake), not overall usage throughout a 24-hour period.
Additionally, Google revealed that it’ll work with smartphone manufacturers, like Samsung, to help push this initiative forward. The company explained, “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.”
Google’s first beta test should help track excessive wake locks. The company explained that this is one of the most significant frustrations for Android users and battery drain overall. If the Android maker can help developers optimize and cut down on wake locks, it’ll seriously enhance the battery life on all of our devices. If all goes well with the beta and after Google gathers developer feedback, this new feature should roll out to more users.
Developers can find documentation to help with guidance and interpretation of any metrics, stats, or excessive wake lock reports. Google then went on to state, “We’re embarking on a multi-year plan to empower you with the tools and data you need to understand, diagnose, and improve your app’s resource consumption, resulting in happier and more engaged users, both for your app, and Android as a whole.”
Google mentioned that later this year, it would consider adding additional metrics to Android vitals to highlight other issues, critical performance problems, and more.
So, what does this mean for regular Android phone owners? Well, nothing right now, but it’s a critical first step in solving one of the longest-running issues with battery life on our devices. Over time, it could help cut down on wake locks, teach developers better ways to handle tasks inside apps, and eventually, deliver better battery life on Android.
In the meantime, there are several ways to improve your battery today. For starters, you can track what apps are draining your battery and consider uninstalling them. Or, you can follow this guide and learn how to make your Android phone last longer than a day.
Source: Android Developers Blog via Android Police
