I’ve read on a few different places here about the low data usage mode. However, I can’t seem to find it on the InControl2 group settings anywhere. I currently have a large number (100+) of CradlePoint units using their NetCloud service (used to be ECM). The devices on this network I have setup to use very limited amounts of data per month. The units would use around 10Mb max, most of the time they were around 5Mb a month. I’m only interested in having InControl2 monitor the online/offline status of the units and managing firmware updates and settings from time to time.
If I’m going to switch to PepWave hardware and the InControl2 service I need to get my data usage dialed into a very low number like it is now. I can’t buy the hardware saving $200, then pay $10 more every month for a higher data plan.
What are the suggested settings I use. I really only need to online/offline status to update on the InControl2 units. I can directly connect to a unit and see the cell signal strength and client data usage (the only 2 other things I really check from time to time) if and when I need to.
Currently the only setting I can find in the group settings to limit data is to “Disable GPS Location Tracking” which I have done.
There are no additional settings as InControl2 is already optimized to use as little data as possible. With no GPS and very minimal use the average amount would be 28Mb per month.
Are there any future plans to further try and bring these numbers down? I know 28Mb per month isn’t a ton, but having over 100 of these units online it would be nice to see that number come down. The price difference between the needed plans I have now and the plans I would need would cost over $4,000 a year.
I hear where you are coming from. This is a tricky balancing act for us because the majority of customers want to see more and more features and reports added and this increases data consumption.
I will make sure our team is aware of your concern.
Thanks for the information. The NetCloud service I’m currently using has a “heartbeat” setting. This is the time between attempts that the remote unit reports to the online portal saying “Hey I’m still online”. Adjusting this from their default setting is what saved us a lot of data. When a unit goes offline it is reported by their portal around 10 - 15 minutes later as offline because of the increased time between heartbeats. This works great for us, as the knowledge of knowing the exact minute the unit goes offline isn’t really important as long as we are notified within the 10-15 minute time frame. Also we have disabled the data logs from being sent back to the online portal. This means we need to login to a unit directly if we want to see what is going on. The only down side to this is, when the unit is power cycled the logs are cleared, so we have to get into the unit before it goes down for its weekly power cycle if there is an issue we need to look into. This is also a small negative, but the positive of being able to have lower data plans is a huge bonus. I’m not sure why these settings aren’t available to everyone or at least available to the accounts who request such features. I’m sure there are more people out there that would agree.
We are planning to add two group wide options to IC2. They are Disable Device Reporting and Disable Live Status Queries. Along with the existing option Disable GPS Location Tracking enabled, a device’s bandwidth consumption could reduce to sub-10MB per month.
Would the “Disable Live Status Queries” then disable the online/offline status of the modems? If so I would propose a “Limited Live Status Queries”. This would take your heartbeat rating from around 30 seconds (seems like when the modem is offline for 30 seconds it updates to offline on the InControl2 portal) to around 5 minutes. This would give users the option to have live status updates, but with a lot less data usage. Just a thought, I really need live status updates but don’t need anything “instant”.
Any updates on the lowering of the data usage and lowering the heartbeat setting needed to monitor the status of the modems? I’m still seeing around 10 time the amount of traffic on these devices vs Cradlepoint devices monthly (10mb vs 100mb). That makes a lot of difference!
What do these features do? There doesn’t seem to be an explanation on the website. I only need to know if a device is online or offline, so what would I need enabled to get this done?
Disable Device Reporting and Disable Live Status Queries
If you just want to know if a device is online or not, you just check the two checkboxes.
Disable Device Reporting - stop devices to post reporting data to IC2. Reports, such as device, Wi-Fi, bandwidth, cellular reports, etc., will be unavailable.
Disable Live Status Queries - when you load up an IC2 page, say, Device Details page, normally IC2 will immediately query the device for its live status (e.g. throughput, WAN state, etc.). Checking this checkbox will stop querying from all devices. Those live data will be unavailable. But device online status is unaffected.
Any further work or features done on this topic? I have implemented all the changes and settings you have recommended. I’m still seeing about 75MB - 100MB of data usage a month from my devices. My Cradlepoint devices running the same equipment, we are also monitoring the online heartbeat of the Cradlepoint devices, only use around 10MB a month. This makes a huge difference in monthly data plans from month to month. I appreciate all the work you are doing on this, but this seems like something that still needs to be better implemented.
I believe there is others usage beside usage of InControl2. Please open ticket for us to take closer look. We also interested to know what is happening there.
It appears there is a “Health Check” option in the modem that was setup for checking every 10 seconds. I lowered this number to only check every 60 seconds. I will report my findings in a few days. This setting is only available if you login to the individual device, located in the modem configuration. I’m going to request an organization wide or group wide setting for this, as it is kind of time consuming to login to each individual device to monitor these settings.
It did lower the data usage a bit, but we still see around 75MB being used per device with very little coming from the devices attached. So I can only assume most of it is communications coming from the PepWave devices, communicating back to the inControl site and or background communications.
