Snapchat's latest update is killing your phone's battery

Snapchat stories
Snapchat stories

Update: Since first publication, Snapchat has pushed through another update on Android but it doesn't seem to have fixed the problem. We've even found a few more cases of Snapchat draining the phone battery hard.

Those using the LG G4 seem to be suffering from the battery drain and some people on Reddit have also claimed it is affecting the Nexus 6.

Our testing on the HTC One M9, iPhone 6 and iPhone 5s didn't experience any significant battery drain and we've still not heard anything back from Snapchat.

Original: Snapchat rolled an update out last night bringing about some simple design changes to the app – but it seems to be dramatically eating into the battery life on some phones.

An LG G4 in our London office had 50% usage and was down to 28% battery after being off charge for three hours.

It's sucking up the juice really quickly and is noticeably hotter than usual. We took to Twitter and found a lot of people complaining about the same issues – some also using an LG G4.

Sucking it up

It's not currently clear if the problem is restricted to Android and iOS. At the moment we're testing an iPhone 5S, iPhone 6 and a HTC One M9 to see what's what. On the One M9 It's noticeably sucking up battery, getting to 9% usage in under half an hour.

Snapchat

The new update to Snapchat is mostly cosmetic, bringing the Discover box of content right in front of your eyes under the Stories tab.

You'll now see the editorial content from Sky News, MTV and Cosmopolitan, among others, as well as the Live events sitting right at the top followed by your friends stories.

We've contacted Snapchat for comment on this story.

James Peckham

James is Managing Editor for Android Police. Previously, he was Senior Phones Editor for TechRadar, and he has covered smartphones and the mobile space for the best part of a decade bringing you news on all the big announcements from top manufacturers making mobile phones and other portable gadgets. James is often testing out and reviewing the latest and greatest mobile phones, smartwatches, tablets, virtual reality headsets, fitness trackers and more. He once fell over.