In just 2 weeks of use, ARC used up almost 5 GB of my cellular data plan, although it's configured to Bandwidth Optimized from the beginning and I mostly stream Tidal content and CD rips (so no hires files). Usage was 1 hour at the most while on cellular coverage.
Describe your network setup
Roon server is on a Windows 11 PC connected via ethernet. ARC is used on a Samsung A54 phone.
As a complement, I attach an image that show the Roon usage for the last 4 weeks. Of course, it doesnt discriminate ARC from local Roon, but it illustrates that usage was far from overly extensive.
Thanks for reaching out with your question! When using ARC, unless you have downloads saved on the app, all music you play will stream directly from your home server or Tidal’s servers, which does require mobile data.
Have you had a chance to explore ARC’s smart downloads feature? It could be a great option to help reduce data usage while still giving you access to your favorite music on the go. Let us know if you’d like any tips on setting it up!
Thank you for the answer.
I just want to know if almost 5 gigabytes of cellular data for about 20 hs of usage is to be excepted from ARC on Bandwidth Optimized settings. I ask for you guys to be clear about this, so I can make an informed decision wether I can use ARC the way I wanted, which is to be able to listen to my “complete library of artists, albums, playlists, and tags”, which is what’s promised.
Cheers.
I use 10 gb per day streaming Tidal and Qobuz through Roon when away from home. This is with the Roon server on my laptop but I suspect Roon ARC might use a similiar amount of data or certainly maybe 1/2 as much. But, I’m just guessing at that.
The beauty of Roon ARC vs using Roon on a laptop, as I do, is if your phone is on an unlimited data plan, which mine is. When using Roon on a laptop, you use hotspot data which might be unlimited but usually gets throttled after you use a certain amount.
Yeah but that’s streaming the original quality in PCM, 1411 kbit/s for CD quality and 9200 kbit/s for 192/24.
@Carlos_Olmedo is using Bandwidth Optimized with ARC, which should be 96 kbit/s for local files and Tidal, and 320 for Qobuz, so that’s a factor of 15 vs CD quality for the former and a factor of 3 for the latter.
20 hours have 72,000 seconds, times 96 (local/Tidal) makes 864 MB for just the music data. Double that for retransmission, other ARC traffic with the server, etc., and 10 (edit: 5) GB usage in practice still looks like a lot. It’s similar to your (Jim‘s) uncompressed usage.
[Edited the wrong 10 to 5 GB above, thanks for pointing out]
But it can easily be calculated. At CD quality in PCM, 1411 Kbps, it’s 15 GB in 24 hours for the pure music data. You seem to be in that ballpark.
He is using 96 Kbps (which is transcoded to this on the Roon Server before sending), so the source data is smaller by a factor 15 than yours. Hence, he should need 1 GB in 24 hours for music data. He played just 20 hours and his ARC data usage was 5 times as much. Maybe there is a lot of resending in cellular, or some other explanation, but it’s a valid question.
You forgot to divide by 8 for Bits to Bytes. [edit: before you corrected it Just to avoid even more confusion for any readers]
24 hours have 86400 seconds. 44,100 samples per second at 16 Bits in 2 channels = 1411 KBits/s = 191,910,400 KBits in 24 hours = divided by 8 is 15,238,800 KBytes = 15,238 MBytes ≈ 15 GB.
Unless I had a stroke
Exactly, that’s what I was saying. But HIS usage, due to Bandwidth Optimizing, should be smaller than yours by a factor of ~15, i.e., nominally 1 GB in 24 hours for just the music data, but in fact it is only by a factor of ~4 or so (approx. accounting for 5 GB in 20 hours instead of 24)
96 kbps = 5760 kbpm = 345600 kbph = 8.294.400 kbpday ≈ 8,3 gigabits per day
8,3 / 8 ≈ 1 gB
So data usage should be around 1/5 of what ARC actually used. Even assuming it was all 128 kpbs (the highest usage informed by ARC documentation in Bandwidth Optimized), we are still at 2,5 times what the data usage should have been.
Hi. I’ve just used ARC for 1 hour exactly with cellular data and it consumed (as reported by Android) 0.22 GB.
If my math is correct, that would be close to the 5 GB per 24 hours of usage I reported earlier, and it would mean it’s streaming at aprox. 490 kbps. Of course, correct me if there is any mixup with these numbers.
The streamed content consisted exclusively of Tidal music; no local files.
ARC is still configured to Bandwitdth Optimized (both for WIFI and cellular data).
Hi @Carlos_Olmedo,
I wanted to update you on the status of your case. We have made a ticket with our ARC developers to investigate this case for you. Once the investigation is completed we will let you know our conclusions here. Thank you for bearing with us on this.
I also want to note that due to a US holiday the support team will be out of the office until Monday, December 2.
Closing the loop on this after investigating with development more closely.
The cellular data consumption within ARC is not limited to audio files - in fact, much of the overhead comes from images and metadata associated with track files. With that consideration in mind, the data you’ve reported is actually not unprecedented.
Just to avoid even more confusion for any readers]