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.

[user-removed]

I ended up switching to Apple Music. Better library of songs and radio stations that are actually good. It also uses less bandwidth and practicaly no battery, and you get iTunes so there you go.

[DML71]

The onscreen time is very high. That would be a major battery drain.

[QuiriniusGast]

1. Apple music is not better. Recommendations are not even close to the ones from Spotify and the library is smaller.

2. I noticed that when I use my phone to play spotify on my playstation I get a massive battery drain, but when I play locally it's fine. No idea why this is, but perhaps good to check.

[nguyenleminh]

Spotify is an BATTERY KILLER app because it’s music encoded in Ogg Vorbis format, then ENCODE AGAIN (reduce battery life, run hot) to AAC format to transfer over Bluetooth.

Lossless -> lossy encode (OGG Vorbis) ->  lossy encode again (AAC, SBC) reduce audio quality for sure.

If Spotify use AAC format natively, music will transfer directly to Bluetooth receiver which save battery life, run cool and keep music at highest quality possible like Apple Music.

If Spotify does not stick with AAC format soon, which is the best audio quality for Bluetooth, will lose customers to other competitors because RE-ENCODE consumes more energy, reduce quality; it’s true for iOS, Android, Windows, MAC, Linux...

Man, we are living in Wireless era. Wishing CEO sets this task to HIGHEST priority, switching to AAC format. 256 kbps variable bit rate (transparency) for extreme audio quality,  160 kps variable bit rate for free customers, 48 kbps AAC Plus version 2 (near CD quality) for cellular data friendly.

[DML71]

Ogg Vorbis is open source and good quality so I can't see Spotify moving formats anytime soon. 

I agree streaming kills my battery. Hence I try to download as many playlists as possible. 

[jack_206 · Accepted solution]

I'm the original poster, and no longer have any battery drain issues with Spotify on iOS (iOS 11/iPhone X). Marking this one as solved. I think a new thread should be created if others are experiencing new/different battery drain issues.

[user-removed]

Issue still here for me on iphone 7 and latest  ios beta 11.3

[E-deruiter]

Wondering what silver your problem ??

please share to help other people 

[Elizabeth1956]

What was the solution?

[user-removed]

the problem was fixed in an update released some time ago, however if you're still having problems you can try switching to offline mode or reinstalling the app.

[Elizabeth1956]

I have only had Spotify since December 2017. Was the fox more recent than that?

[user-removed]

Yes it was several months before that. What version of iOS are you running?