Netflix's Android app is eating up your battery: Details here
What's the story
While modern-day smartphones come with fast charging solutions that can give up to 50% juice in a matter of minutes, the problem of battery drainage still exists.
Phones can lose power due to several reasons, including apps running in the background.
Now, if you are witnessing similar issues, we recommend updating the Netflix app immediately.
Here's why.
Issue
Background apps consuming power, unnecessarily
When apps run in the background, they continue from where you left off, instead of starting afresh.
However, just recently, technology firm Mobile Enerlytics noted that the Netflix app consumed way too much battery than a normal app running in the background would.
Precisely, it consumed more than 20% juice when a Nexus 6 running Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow sat completely idle.
Analysis
Then, they delved into the issue
Prompted by its own experience, the Mobile Enerlytics' team analyzed Netflix reviews on the Google Play Store to note that a number of people have complained about battery drainage between May and December 2018.
Their suspicions were confirmed with what the company calls Eagle tester battery drainage test - it showed that Netflix consumed up to 300mAh of juice while sitting doing nothing.
Issue
Multiple builds appeared affected
And, it wasn't just a single version; the team noted that multiple builds of the Netflix app, coming since version 6.1, have been marred by the drainage issue.
They all apparently entered a background process management loop, which ate the power unnecessarily.
However, notably, the app issue only appears to affect devices running Android 6.0.1, which make up 17% of the entire Android user-base.
Solution
So, update Netflix if you are witnessing battery drain
That said, if you are on a newer version of Android, the problem may have not cropped up on your phone.
But if it has, we recommend updating the Netflix app to the version 7.8.0 or newer to fix the issue.
Netflix was quick to issue a patch when the team from Mobile Enerlytics reached out to them with their findings.