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.

[adriank1410]

We don't know what's going on and yes, we are affected by this issue too. Spotify doesn't tell us about those kind of technical things. But yeah, the drain is obvious.

[jack_206]

Thanks adriank1410, appreciate the reply!

[smev]

Well time for Spotify to debug their janky software. Not that hard to attach a performance profiler and count those cpu cycles.

So much for my 6 month free premium trial. Not even worth using for free.

[theactualdave]

Add me to this list, too. Although for me, it's only been for the past week or so. I spend an hour or so at the gym with Spotify open on my 6s and battery goes from 95% to 35%. This only occurs while using Spotify, so it's not a battery issue (also checked on Apple's site and my battery is not one of the bad ones).

UPDATE: I did an experiment today. Started a free trial with Deezer, installed their iPhone app, and then went to the gym as usual. Starting battery: 95%. Ending battery (after 1.5 hours of continuous streaming over WiFi to Bluetooth headset: 90%. Battery usage: 37%. Roughly half of what Spot uses in the same timeframe.

[aslepire16]

I am also having the same exact issue. Even with offline listening, I lose 20% in 15 minutes! This is absolutely ridiculous.

[Lazyboy1982]

I've now binned off Apple... Samsung s7 with a micro SD card gives me 150gb storage and a phone that holds its charge more importantly. Enjoyed close to 35 hours of battery with regular usage including streaming music... No more naughty Apple for me! Well phone anyway... my MacBook works a treat I have to say 

[Lazyboy1982]

I've now binned off Apple... Samsung s7 with a micro SD card gives me 150gb storage and a phone that holds its charge more importantly. Enjoyed close to 35 hours of battery with regular usage including streaming music... No more naughty Apple for me! Well phone anyway... my MacBook works a treat I have to say 

[user-removed]

Exact same thing here. I even restores IOS 10.2.1.

Listening offline musing drains battery drastically.

[emmakr]

That same problem just started happening to me today. I've had Spotify premium for a few months and I was just listening to my downloaded playlist, at home, with wifi and my battery went from 80% to 11% in 30 minutes. Spotify had used 49% of my battery. It happened earlier today at school too and it made my phone die which was really irratating. This has never happened before and I haven't updated my phone recently so it just came out of no where. I'm thinking of deleting the app and redownloading it.

[timothydog76]

Came here with this exact problem today but it has to do with Bluetooth for sure. I have been using Spotify for months with a pair of high quality corded headphones and listening to only downloaded playlists. Never had a battery problem at all. I bought a set of nice bluetooth headphones recently and used them with my Spotify playlists for the first time today. After one hour my phone is physically hot to the touch after sitting on an open table and my battery has gone from 99% to 68%. This is a serious problem! What is happening?

[Sluuz]

I'm also using a Bluetooth headphone and having the same issue. Today I got fed up and switched to Apple Music. Bye Spotify.

[ashaw953]

I'm not so sure about the Bluetooth link.  I don't use Bluetooth for Spotify, and often do not have it enabled at all, and I still have the problem.  -- Andty

[ggirotto]

hello guys, its here the meeting of people with the problem of several battery drain with iPhone 6s and IOS 10.x ? I've come to join the meeting 😕 . 50%> battery usage from Spotify. I've read the previous replies and noticed that there is no official position from Spotify Staff and the topic was create several months ago, so the problem is old and it's not going to be solved so early. Seriously thinking about going to Apple Music, since the student license it's $2.5/month lolz.

[jumboiowan]

+1 for hot phone, quickly draining battery while listening to offline music on wifi with corded headphones.

Been a loyal Spotify user for years but not going to last much longer if they don't fix this...unless they want to pay for a new phone battery.

[GregM_]

I while ago I posted with the same issues. But it went away for a while so I thought it was fixed.

Yesterday it came back again but I think I might have a fix. It would be good if someone else could try it.

On sunday I rebooted my iphone 5s. I rarely do this so it had probably been months since the last time. The day after Spotify drained the battery in an hour whilst listen to online songs (I have no downloaded ones currently).

I wondered if this reboot might be the issue. So I did the following steps:

- deleted the Spotify app.

- rebooted the iPhone.

- reinstalled the app.

Today I've had no problems at all. Of course this isn't great if you rely on downloaded songs as you will have to re-download them all but I'm on a wifi network all day so not necessary for me. Also not great if you have to reboot your phone often for other reasons!

It would be great if someone else could try it and give the rest of us on this list some feedback to see if it works. Especially as Spotify have not posted once to acknowledge the problem! Very disappointing customer service!

[Jared_11]

I'm jumping into the fray here as I ran into this issue for the first time today.  I listen at work, over wifi, all streaming and have never had an issue like this before.  My iphone 6s was really hot and I could watch the percentage tick down, multiple percentage points every minute.  

I tried just rebooting with no luck but then I saw the post from GregM_ and gave his idea a try.  I didn't have much downloaded music so wasn't a big deal for me.  I can reoprt that this seems to have worked for me.  I've only been listening for about 30 minutes now after the uninstall/reboot/reinstall, but it's pretty easy to tell something changed and it's working better now as my battery would have plummeted in that amount of time earlier today.  It hasn't gone down at all at this point.

Hope this fix works for other people!  If it happens again, I'll give this method a shot one more time but from reading through these posts, Spotify doesn't seem to care, so Google Play or Apple Music it shall be.

Thanks GregM!

EDIT:  I guess I jumped the gun with excitement.  Battery back to falling like a rock. Spotify is the only app open and I'm watching the life drain right out of it.  

I apologize for the hasty reporting.  I guess I can now confrim it did NOT work.  

[GregM_]

haha, I got so excited when I read the first version of the post!

Ok, back to the drawing board. When it happens again my end I'll try something else....

(Feel free to jump in Spotify, we're waiting for some customer service!)

[timothydog76]

Just came back to touch base. Signed up for a trial of Apple Music and recreated and downloaded my most used\ playlists. I'll probably be using this instead of Spotify Premium from now on 😕 

[jack_206]

I've made the move to Apple Music as well for the sake of my battery. An app called "Songshift" on the App Store can import your Spotify playlists into Apple Music, if anyone is interested in that. You can then switch to the free version of Spotify and import your Discover Weekly and Release Radar stuff into Apple Music every week.

Songshift: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/songshift/id1097974566?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4 

[akrizae]

Came here to thumbs up this thread and say I get the same issue. I'll try to uninstall and reinstall later.