Chrome is working on a streaming feature that saves battery consumption on mobile devices

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Google is experimenting with a feature that reduces the use of a mobile device’s internal drive while streaming media. This would allow the battery to last longer when not charging. The idea for the feature comes from Microsoft.

On GitHub, Microsoft developer Shawn Pickett writes that streaming media stores cached files on the internal drive while downloading and playing media. As a result, a device’s internal disk remains active for longer and certain power-saving features of an operating system cannot be enabled. According to Pickett, this has a negative impact on the battery life of a mobile device.

Specifically, it concerns streaming media that uses the ‘Range’ HTTP request header during playback to receive a portion of the media file and store it as a cache file on the internal disk. In most cases, however, these cache files are not used, according to Pickett. For example, when a user rewinds for a few seconds, the cache files from the device’s memory are used. Only when a user were to rewind further than what is stored in memory will the internal disk cache be used.

Pickett now proposes that such HTTP request headers can no longer store the cache files on a mobile device’s internal drive if the mobile device is not on the charger. This would extend the battery life of a mobile device, while the user experience remains relatively similar. The disadvantage of this feature is that if a user wants to rewind far back, the device has to download the files again.

The Microsoft developer tested its function on a laptop, streaming unencrypted 1080p files on a laptop that was not charging. According to his test, the laptop was 62mW more energy efficient than before and 309KB less was written to the disk per second. He does not specify which internal drive or laptop Pickett used.

For the past few months, a Google developer has been working with Pickett to get the feature working. Late last week, the Google developer said he wanted to use the feature in Chrome and start the experiment “soon”. There is therefore a chance that this function will eventually become available to the general public. It is not clear whether the feature is also in the Chromium version of Edge.

More than a year ago, Microsoft announced that it would base Edge on Chromium. Earlier it appeared that the EdgeHtml version was more economical than Chrome and the Chromium version of Edge during video playback. This was about fifty to one hundred mW. With the new feature, the disk economy of Chrome and Chromium-Edge will be closer to EdgeHtml.

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