Spotify causing severe battery drain on iPhone 6S running iOS 10

[jack_206]

This was an issue on iOS 9 and still seems to be happening on iOS 10. Spotify is using 3x more battery than any other app and accounts for about 50% of all battery usage. This never used to be an issue, and I don't understand what it could possibly be doing that is so resource-hungry. Most of my listening is via saved songs on my offline playlist, so it isn't a mobile data issue.

Anyone know how to resolve this? A music player should not be impacting device battery life like this.

Edit Oct 11 2016: Adding a screenshot since this doesn't seem to be getting any traction with Spotify. I unplugged 4 hours ago and my battery is at 13%. And 46% of my battery has been used by Spotify over the last 24 hours.

[Rschelle]

I disabled all options under privacy/analytics. Spotify is running fine again. Hope it stays that way. 

[JimboMcPot]

I have been having this same problem. Iphon6s heating up, dramatic battery drain. Only app running is spotify & once I close it phone behaves normal.

I have tried everything on this forum but problem persists.

Currently I have allowed Spotify to refresh in background. I had background app refresh turned off but my current thinking is this maybe causing a conflict between running Spotify & the iOS? Anyway I have turned this feature on & only app I'm allowing is spotify. Seems to be running fine last few days, I will keep an eye on if & update back if the issue happens again.

I just wish Spotify would release an update to fix this

[klo25]

Same to me, Iphone7 current iOS, Spotify 8.4.0.623.

Sometimes I see significant battery drain while listening to music. Mostly I listen to locally stored content. Connected via WLAN, corded headpone.

I don't see the issue always, this only happens sometimes and it seems that this has to do with interaction with the app during playback. Sometimes I can listen all day w/o issues, then sometimes I interact with the app and a bit later I notice that the phone gets hot and the battery drain gets significant.

It (temporary) helps to kill the app and restart it.

Spotify, please fix this issue.

[smev]

Well that's that. No fix in 6 months.

[amh140]

haha yeah i'm about to cancel. this **bleep** is ridiculous. I've tried all the suggested changes, and just this morning my phone dropped by 40% on my ride into work (1 hour)

[amh140]

ALL - I HAVE MY SOLUTION. I CANCELLED SPOTIFY AND SWITCHED BACK TO APPLE MUSIC. THIS IS THE ONLY SOLUTION THAT SPOTIFY IS PROVIDING. THANKS FOR NOTHING SPOTIFY.

[JimboMcPot]

Update on this

Connecting Spotify to Facebook and allowing it to run in the background seems to have solved this issue for me.

[OnikaGOD]

So i had this happen last night. Running iOS 10.3.2 on iPad Pro 12.9 (2017) Played one song. Shut off my wifi, background app refresh was turned off as always. This morning battery is drained 25% Spotify ran in the background for 17 hours! So i deleted the app and reinstalled also my battery stats are all messed up I was going on 6-7 hours of usage today says 24 hours of usage with 42% battery. Something weird going on.

[QuiriniusGast]

The only thing that always has been working for me is to switch off Wifi when listening to Spotiy. For some reason Spotify is transfering data or polling to the servers which drains a lot of battery, even when all the songs are stored locally.

[ginaadrson]

I found an online guide about the how to improve battery and it worked for me.

Source: https://www.howtoisolve.com/improve-ios-11-battery-life

[skillio]

Offline mode in Spotify settings plus disabling background refresh for Spotify vis iOS settings seems to work for premium accounts who primarily listen to downloaded offline music. Or at least for me. 

[Sramforce]

Here’s a weird observation: even at home, playing Spotify on my stereo via “Spotify connect”, the phone app severely drains the phone battery, when the phone Spotify app shouldn’t even be active!? What’s the point with Spotify Connect if the phone app still is obviously overactive? This morning in 1.5 hours my iPhone 7 battery dropped from 100% to 75%, and Spotify took 80% of that, according to the battery app.  And only background activity, not one second of actually playing music on the iPhone, only Spotify Connect on the stereo! 

[QuiriniusGast]

@Sramforce: How is your stereo connected? Does it have a direct internet connection or a Spotify app running on it?

[Sramforce]

It’s a Denon stereo with network connection and built in Spotify Connect. I see it in my phone Spotify app as a Spotify Connect client. So, as far as I know, when I choose it all streaming, decoding and playing is done directly in the stereo, in fact I can shut off my phone and the stereo continues playing. So I see no reason for the Spotify app in the phone to do much background activity at all. 

[QuiriniusGast]

You're absolutly right.

How is the battery drain when you connect through a Blutooth speaker? So not Spoity connect but still using an "exernal" speaker.

Another thing I would like to know if you know someone else with an iPhone and to try this out for you on their phone. Just to narrow down the issue.

[Sramforce]

Well, I haven’t lab-tested it, but I use bt headphones a lot and my “feeling” is that there’s no obvious difference in iPhone battery drain between playback over Bluetooth, airplay or Spotify Connect. Which isn’t logical, since in the bt/airplay case the iPhone is streaming data from internet via WiFi/3G/4G, probably doing some kind of decoding/processing, then transmitting to bt or airplay client. While in the Spotify Connect case, the phone would be doing... well, nothing, right?

I will try to compare with other phones, iOS and android, we have a few in the family. But i’d much rather prefer some kind of real answer from Spotify, with some evidence of ongoing effort to address the issue with battery drain, or at least some attempt to explain why the app has to use all that power. 

[Clairecc663]

I have the same problem, and my background app refresh is off. Please fix this problem Spotify.

[holidayflat]

No solution in sight.  Ended up switching to apple music, discovery is definetely worse, but no hot phone.

[nastynater89]

 

yup this completely sucks.

[Josht10101]

Even if I have my phone on the charger while using Spotify my charger can’t keep up with the battery drain and the percentage drops 50% in like 20 minutes!