Netflix, YouTube and Spotify all have been criticized for consuming a lot of mobile data. People who stream videos or listen to music using cellular data will obviously want to keep their data usage low, so that they do not end up with an extremely high phone bill at the month end.
Settings to control Netflix data usage
Luckily, there are settings in all the popular streaming apps that can prove helpful to the users intending to save mobile data. Thanks to David Nield of Gizmodo, we now know what these settings are.
Netflix’s data usage settings are available on the company’s website only, and not inside the phone or tablet apps of the service. Users can technically access Netflix settings through a mobile browser for which they need to request Netflix’s desktop site, however, navigating on a desktop or laptop is much easier.
Users can choose from three available settings: Low (0.3GB/hour), Medium (0.7GB/hour), or High (up to 3GB/hour) for reducing data consumption, says Nield. There is an auto setting as well that chooses the best rate on behalf of the user for their current connection speed. To access those settings, users need to choose Account and then Playback settings from the main Netflix Android app menu.
An important point worth noting is that these settings need to be configured on a profile-by-profile basis. For users, who do not share their Netflix account, it is recommended that they set up two profiles; one for maximum data usage and other for minimum data usage. This should depend on where a user is watching fro, says Nield.
Setting to Wi-Fi, YouTube, Spotify
Users can also restrict Netflix streaming to times when they have a Wi-Fi connection, for this they will need to choose App Settings from the menu. For iOS device, the Wi-Fi setting is available under the Netflix entry inside the main Settings app, says Nield. The users can also choose the video quality, and for getting the options on an iDevice, users need to launch the Netflix app first then choose Account.
On YouTube mobile apps, users can change video quality just as they can on the web i.e. they will need to tap the menu button then choose quality. There are some easily accessible controls on Spotify app as well for choosing exactly how much data a user wants to use on a daily basis, and can put a ceiling on it.
