For people who are on a data budget, streaming videos on their mobile devices can sometimes be stressful on the pockets (and on the device’s battery too). But a lot of services are now trying to find ways to help us out when it comes to managing our data. For the folks who are in India, fast mobile connection is another problem that some experience. That is why YouTube, which is of course one of the most accessed sites and apps, has found a way to help with that problem with their Smart Offline feature.
Whenever you click on a YouTube video, you see a grey arrow that you need to click or tap so you can download the video offline. But now, you’ll have the option to choose “Save overnight” and this means that the video will start downloading at a time when your carrier has discounted night rates. So choose the videos you want to download, choose that option, sleep on it, and then when you wake up the next day, you’ll be able to watch it without consuming your precious regular data rates.
You will be able to find the videos that were downloaded while you were sleeping in the saved videos section of your YouTube channel. This feature is pretty important in a country like India where the data rates are still sky-high as compared to other countries. Other streaming services may also want to take their lead from Google in order to make some headway into a market like that.
This feature seems to be only available in India for now, particularly for Airtel and Telenor subscribers. But let’s wait and see if it will rollout to other territories as well.
SOURCE: Google India
