Netflix users who want to watch TV on their mobile devices without sapping all their data now have a new tool at their disposal. The SVOD service has announced a feature called Smart Downloads, which is currently available on Android phones and tablets.
While Netflix has offered the ability to download videos since 2016, Smart Downloads allows for further control of an individual’s offline viewership. When it is enabled, completed episodes of a series will automatically be removed from the devices they were stored on, thus freeing up valuable space. Future episodes of those shows will then be automatically added to the same device once an internet connection is available.
Smart Downloads are available to all Netflix users, but the feature will be particularly useful to users in developing nations like India, where bandwidth can often be sparse. That connectivity issue is one tech companies are eager to solve, and YouTube in particular has encouraged Indian viewers to watch more video by launching the space-saving YouTube Go app in the South Asian nation in 2017.
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If you need any more evidence that Netflix is courting Indian consumers with Smart Downloads, look no further than a launch video introducing the feature. It includes clips from Netflix’s first Indian original series, Sacred Games, which arrived just days before Smart Downloads was announced.
Smart Downloads is available for Android devices now, but Mac users will have to wait until lat to get their hands on it. To read more details about Netflix’s new feature, check out the company’s blog.
