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VPN Battery Drain: The Myth Busted!
14 Jul
Summary
- Independent research shows VPNs drain less than 2% of battery daily.
- Phone battery screens often misattribute power usage to VPN apps.
- Newer VPN protocols use significantly less battery than older ones.
A new independent report commissioned by NordVPN and conducted by West Coast Labs has debunked the long-held belief that VPNs significantly drain smartphone batteries. Research across flagship Apple, Samsung, and Google devices revealed that continuous VPN usage for 24 hours resulted in a battery impact of only 1.4% on Android and 1.8% on iOS.
The study highlights that smartphone operating systems often miscalculate battery consumption. When a VPN is active, all data traffic is routed through its encrypted tunnel, leading the OS to attribute the associated power usage entirely to the VPN app. Hardware measurements, however, showed the actual overhead to be between 1.6% and 2.1%.
Furthermore, the report indicates that modern VPN protocols, such as NordVPN's NordLynx based on WireGuard, are far more battery-efficient than older ones like OpenVPN. Benchmarking demonstrated that NordLynx consumes up to 31% less battery per unit of data compared to OpenVPN on Android, and 24% less on iOS, addressing a key concern for users.
