Streaming music over 4G/LTE - battery life?

[mcgroarty]

Do any of you routinely listen to music streamed over 4G/LTE? Which iPhone model are you using, and what kind of an impact does it have on battery life?

T-Mobile has plans that include free bandwidth for select music streaming services. AT&T is offering a limited time doubling of some of its larger data plans. Using these for access to huge music libraries sounds tempting, but not if the phone won't last more than a few hours.

 

[zhenya]

I listen at my desk from my iPhone 6 via Beats Audio. I also use the camera connection kit for digital out to a portable amp, which tends to draw extra power and I could probably go 10-12 hours or so of listening. This is on wifi.

Obviously this is nothing like the insane battery life of listening to local music, but it's not bad. In the iPhone 6 the LTE modem has been improved to the point where there is little difference between it and wifi power-consumption wise. Obviously if you are travelling and seeing varying signal levels, this won't be the case, but for largely static use, LTE is now pretty power efficient.