How much data does the Tracker app uses on a cellphone plan?

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03-12-2020 05:16 AM
Jean-SebastienLauzon
New Contributor III

We are thinking about implementing tracking through the Tracker app but we need to evaluate how much data we would need to purchase / cell phone plan. Does anyone know how much data the Tracker app sends/receives per hour of tracking? 

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by Anonymous User
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Last time we checked this (which was maybe 8 months ago) these were the findings:

A track point feature is approximately 930 bytes when uploaded via applyEdits. There is around an additional 1kb overhead for the request and a minimum of 150 bytes for the response.

The number of points recorded varies based on the movement of the device. 2000 points per hour would be a reasonable average estimate. If we assume 350 points uploaded every 10 minutes (default behavior) that would be around 325 kilobytes per upload which would be around 2 megabytes per hour.

If the default LKL update frequency of  60 seconds is used that would be 60 * (930 +150) = ~65 kilobytes.

There are also other requests made which are generally small and negligible when compared to the track upload.

So I would say to expect around 2 megabytes per device per hour. Anecdotally, this seems to match what I see on my phone from tracking a few hours yesterday (5.7 MB).

I'm curious if other people have data usage metrics.