You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Apple TV 4 data usage is unoptimal

With a switch to the new Apple TV (4th gen, tvOS 9.1.1) I noticed a significant spike in data consumption.

Yes, you can say it's streaming and it's HD and then you'd recommend turning off live screen saver.

But hey do the math:

Aerial screensaver claims 600MB data usage and is set up to monthly update.
Netflix claims 3GB/hr usage for HD content and is used and I used 7 hrs this week
Viewed about the same amount of Plex from local server, but that is assumed to be local traffic
Used 15GB of downloads from my Mac
Didn't use anything else on ATV

Now to sum up this should give up to 50GB for the past week. Well ok, even if doubling that up, it would be 100GB.

But actually 200GB have been consumed!

Also noticed: the faster the channel, the more bandwidth is used in the end of the day.

I'm looking towards 2 possible solutions here:

Return my Apple TV and use different media box (see bellow)
Switching to unlimited data plan

If no optimization is spotted in future updates, will probably will return, fortunately Satisfaction Guarantee program in Costco gives me enough time to understand if this product is actually data black hole.

It is obvious that Apple TV data consumption is far not optimal.

I wonder if anyone has any information about how exactly Apple uses extra data to ATV or if there is a bug that is causing bandwidth leak.

Not only concerned with the internet provider bills, but also about the fact that my internet resources are wasted for (potentially) Apple TV doing nothing useful while other devices on the network struggling with slower connection speed.

Data consumption stats from router based on device MAC address: ATV4 (green) vs. Amazon Fire TV (red)

Apple TV, tvOS 9.1.1, 64GB

Posted on Feb 1, 2016 2:12 PM

Top-ranking reply

nautilus_3

Level 1

4 points

Posted on Apr 22, 2017 6:57 PM

I've noticed the issue too. Below is a screenshot of my router which has built in monitoring. The spike in the beginning was a late night for me watching YouTube. Then after putting it to sleep for the night as well as stopping all the apps running in the background, I find its talking to iCloud for some reason. I was alseep then was gone for that day. Have no idea what it was doing talking to iCloud uploading and downloading. This graph represents both. I too have a data cap. I plug my router from my provider to this router, which serves all my devices so I can monitor who is doing what in my house and can blame for causing expensive overage penalties. But to sum up, my router reports that my ATV4 when in sleep mode and no apps running in the background, screen saver updates turned off (since they say is can download 600Mb per day just adding new savers), auto updates for apps and the OS is turned off, is constantly talking to iCloud and using about 40Mb per hour (821Mb for the day).. This thing shouldn't be doing anything without me knowing, I don't think I missed any settings..