What/If
Does arc use extra data (ie. More than the music) when streaming?
I’ve experienced the following…
6 days a week I walk 20/25 minutes to work.
Evening… Same
2 / 3 hours a week are streamed when I’m in the car
My dataplan is 17gb…
Before arc I never received any notification regarding data use…
3 weeks ago ‘activated’ full functionality and started streaming through arc…
Lo and behold… 15 days in my bundle is gone…
Only explanation is that arc uses more data than the ‘music’ itself…
Check your settings for ‘PLAYBACK’, particularly in terms of what you have set for ‘Cellular’. There are four options: Original Quality, CD Quality, Balanced, and Bandwidth Optimised. If you’re using Original or CD Quality this will go through your data quite quickly.
Yes, it would have to. You’re also sending and receiving data to and from your Roon core in addition to the music. I would think the music streaming is most of your data usage.
Don’t feel bad. I have used 145GB of cellular hotspot data in 2 1/2 weeks streaming Tidal and Qobuz from Roon and Audirvana to my Dell laptop. I’m not using Roon ARC because it stopped working the first day I left home.
I’m switching to Apple Music directly to my iPhone for the next 1/2 week because it uses regular data, not hotspot data.
As others have said, check your streaming quality preference in ARC. Before ARC, did you stream the same amount of time from a streaming service app? Then you may want to compare with the quality preference you used in that app.
By the way, the bandwidth used by the various ARC settings is detailed here:
And I don’t know where you live, but e.g. here in Germany, the data by the audio streaming services is typically excluded from data caps in many/most subscription plans (and the phone service providers force the streaming services to pay up instead. For now - this is about to end because it violates net neutrality, meaning that services like ARC are not on equal footing)
There isn’t much overhead over the files themselves, arcs metadata will pull some data from the core at home but this is small stuff in comparison to music. As other have said check your settings as ARC will use the full bandwidth available to it if you don’t set it accordingly so that could be hires which will eat up your data plan. Any music service would do the same if lossless. Have you downloaded any files via ARC there have been reports early on where for some users it uses cellular data for this rather than the home network when they were at home.
Is this a feature I haven’t found?
Hehe, flashbacks to the movie “Weird Science” in my teens…
Didn’t spot that typo.
Or, Freudian slip??
I’ve constantly streamed Tidal in Master (where it can), and I use my (Phone) music 5 days a week for around 7 hours a day, and I’ve struggled to use more than 40GB of data in a month. Now I’m using ARC, and I’m using about the same. My plan just reset on the 29th, and I’ve used around 3GB so far out of 125GB. Come the 29th, I’ll see how much roughly ARC uses.
I am really looking forward to testing this feature out, might be best to do it whilst my wife and children are not around 
Definitely a mobile “on the road” feature with excellent benefits!!!
Teens?
Bloody hell that makes me feel old now😳
Wow. At $30/GB on my plan ARC is a non starter. I download Tidal to my phone over WiFi for music on-the-go.
On my Verizon plan, it’s not cheap, but worthwhile for me. After discounts, I pay:
iPhone 13 Pro Max - $60 for 50GB hotspot + unlimited/non-throttled premium data, free Apple Music
iPhone 13 Pro - $60 for 50GB hotspot + unlimited/non-throttled premium data, free Apple Music
iPad Mini 6th Gen - $15 for 30GB hotspot
iPad 8th Gen - $15 for 30GB hotspot
Total $150 for 160GB hotspot + unlimited/non-throttled premium data on 2 phones. Free Apple Music, ESPN+, Disney+, Hulu, 600GB Verizon Cloud each phone. All four devices have unlimited/throttled hotspot after unthrottled is used up, but it’s too slow to be of much use.
When hotspot is used up, I switch to Roon ARC or Apple Music straight from iPhone to DAC.
EDIT: This is for phone service and data only. I pay cash for new phones.
That’s interesting that it’s using a lot of data. I have unlimited here but it’s not the case for everyone.
I was recently troubleshooting using ARC over my VPN and captured some numbers. Now, this data usage is across the VPN session so it does contain a small amount of non ARC traffic.
VPN set-up is:
<-/-> Core
ARC <OUT- -- -IN> Private network -
<-\-> Internet
In 20 minutes of listening to various high resolution formats including DSD I used 22MB in / 1.01GB
So, yeah, high resolution can eat a lot of data very quickly.
Now, I also have the ability to split tunnel my VPN so that “the internet” does not go over the VPN.
<-/-> Core
ARC <OUT- -- -IN> Private network -
\
<-\-> Internet
In this configuration a similar listening session created a couple megabits of data across the VPN (no streaming of “local” files). So, the interaction with Core, unless you’re streaming local files, is minimal.
$30 for 30Gb = 100 albums
Is the reason I was never interested in ARC
A 256 SD card is paid for in 5 weeks - no brainer, I can now see 512 which was prohibitively expensive when I chose 256 that 2 months payback !!
Wow some expensive plans. I just downgraded from 160GB plan at £16, to 125GB for £12 on EE. I was going to go for unlimited but, I never use more than 60GB a month. (Sim Only, I buy my phones outright as it’s cheaper for me)
I’ve just come to the conclusion that mobile data here in the UK is very cheap.
£25 a month (5G plan) gives me unlimited data, calls and texts.
Been saying that all along , its why ARC has absolutely no value to me