We offer 3 different cellular data plans:
- 5 MB – Annual Price $59.99
- Ideal for internet/network failover applications.
- 10 MB – Annual Price $95.99
- Perfect for most use cases with a few end points.
- 30 MB – Annual Price $179.99
- Great for monitoring many end points and consistent logging.
A cellular data plan can be purchased after purchasing the device. Each device will require its own data plan, and the plan best fit for you will depend on your personal needs. Actions that use data are:
General Usage:
A cellular device will use 28kB a day to maintain a connection to the cloud server.
It is 14kB every time it connects to the cloud server, and it usually needs to reconnect twice a day. This would be about 0.8MB of data a month for simply maintaining a connection to the cloud service. This usage will increase with poor cellular coverage due to repeated reconnects.
Mobile App:
The CBW Mobile app can pull data directly from the Cellular device. However, it can easily consume a lot of data. We recommend:
– Use CBW Mobile 2 (available on iOS/Apple)
– For CBW Mobile (available on Android and iOS/Apple), set the device refresh rate to a maximum of 50 seconds.
– Minimize the app usage and close the app when you are done monitoring the cellular device.
Email:
Each email sent will be 6kB (plus any logged data for emailing logged data).
Device Web pages:
Accessing the setup pages can use around 100kB to 500kB, or possibly more depending on how many pages are accessed. The local log file can be accessed directly as well, however it is much more data efficient to use the logging “Push to Cloud” function. The logged data will be stored on the cloud server for 30 days and can be accessed multiple times with no increased cellular data use.
Logging Pushed to cloud:
Digital inputs and relays will use very little data for logging when pushed to the cloud server. Analog values will use significantly more data when logging to the cloud, but still consume little data when used wisely, for example:
A specific customer is logging 3 Analog values every 15 minutes and sending that data to the cloud server (every 15 minutes). This device uses about 2MB a month total, so we deduce the 3 I/O every 15 minutes would be about 1.2MB a month.
10 analog values logged and pushed to the cloud every 5 minutes used 128/129 KB per day (3.9MB monthly). This means that logging each analog value every 5 minutes used about 10KB each per day.
Overall, the constant connection to the cloud server uses a very small amount of data, while accessing the setup pages uses exponentially more. If your cellular devices are meant to keep a steady log of information and rarely have the setup pages accessed, smaller data plans will be sufficient.
We advise that you only access setup pages when absolutely necessary to avoid using the entire data plan early.
If you have any additional questions about cellular data plans, contact us.