On Thursday Video streaming service, YouTube rolled out a new feature that is Smart Offline. In India, at night time when mobile operators are offering cheaper night data rates, this new feature allows a user to download a video at cheaper rates. The company wrote on its blog today, we are beginning to roll out a feature called Smart Offline on YouTube that lets you take advantage of these cheaper data rates as offered by your mobile operator, without requiring you to stay up late at night.
To take a video offline when a user taps on the grey arrow, a prompt will appear, at that time, using the mobile operator’s discounted night data plan, the user can opt to select save overnight. After the user selects it, that night after peak hours, the YouTube app will smartly schedule the video to be downloaded. The app will do the work and the user need not stay awake till late in the night to take advantage of the night data plan. The company says that, the next morning the videos will be ready to watch offline and on the go, with no buffering.
Thus this plan allows a user to kill two birds with one stone, meaning while the YouTube does the work of downloading the required data at a discounted rate late in the night, the user can do some other work or enjoy his nights beauty sleep. On Thursday this feature was rolled out only for Airtel and Telenor subscribers but very soon it will be made available for all users in India. The feature will not work on Wi-Fi networks, therefore the user, in order to reap its benefits, has to update YouTube app to the latest version.