Data-Friendly Streaming Tips
26 May 2015
Does streaming music and videos on your mobile take a serious chunk out of your monthly data allowance? You’re not alone.
To help keep the good times scrolling I’ve pulled together a few data-friendly streaming tips for both music and video streaming buffs, check them out.
Stream music at a lower quality
Reducing the streaming quality on your music app is a sure-fire way to help save some data. It’s easy enough to do, and you can always change back to the default setting if you don’t love the sound.
If you use Pandora, streaming at 128 kbps (or 192kbps if you have a premium account) can make a serious dent in your data. Try reducing the quality to 64k ACC+ for a data-friendly streaming session.
Spotify Premium users will have three streaming qualities to choose from – low (96kbps), normal (160kbps) and extreme (320kbps). The lower the quality, the less data you’ll use while you stream.
The option to change the audio quality is usually found in the Settings section of your music streaming app, so have a play around to find the one that best suits your music tastes and data limit.
Watch out for autoplay
Autoplay is now a default feature on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Not only is it super distracting, but it also unnecessarily eats away at your data. You can’t completely disable autoplay, but you can restrict it to when you’re connected to Wi-Fi on some platforms and operating systems. Here are the steps to disable autoplay on Facebook for iOS and Android, as well as for Twitter on Apple devices. Unfortunately there are no options to disable autoplay on Instagram, or on Twitter for non-iOS users that we know of. The best option here is either to scroll down your feed fast enough so the videos don’t play, or connect to Wi-Fi.
Do some research before deciding on a streaming app
When looking for a streaming app take a look at the different audio or video qualities available, and check to see if you’ll encounter in-app ads as this can also use up some of your data. Check out our overview of the different music streaming apps available, as well as this super comprehensive guide from CNET. The guys at CNET also have a guide on the different video streaming apps available in Australia – take note of which apps use high-definition (HD) streaming, as this can quickly eat away at your data.
Stay on top of your data usage
Remember that the best way to stay on top of your data usage is to monitor it regularly. Here are some of the ways you can go about that:
Track your data usage in My amaysim or by using our free amaysim app for Apple and Android;
Pay attention to our data usage alerts – we’ll let you know via email and text message when you hit 50%, 85% and 100% of your plan or Data Pack’s data inclusions (keep in mind that it can sometimes take up to 48 hours for these messages to send); and
Text ‘BAL’ to 568 to see how much data you’ve still got up your sleeve;
If you do end up going over your allowance additional data comes at 7.2c/MB or $10/1GB
Cheers,
Mariah - amaysim's marketing intern
