Recommendations for next version of Usage Meter

[MarkJFine]

After going through the process of seeing where data leaks are, I started to realize that the Usage Meter could be a great tool to figure out what's going on. The problem is was that the data as provided wasn't really resolute for something like that. So I came up with some ideas of how to fix that:

1. More digits: May be my personal preference, but showing the data in terms of MB (like Account/Usage on the web site does) is a lot more helpful than in GB with one decimal place. That will give you only 100MB resolution. Also prefer percents showing to 1 or 2 decimal points depending upon how it tends to vary. In this case using 1 decimal places for the percent usage and 2 decimal places for remaining time (which I added, btw).

2. More data: Again, personal preference, but it's a lot easier if you don't have to math in your head. So, I added a remaining data to the donuts. I also added back the progress bars, with markers showing where you should be (on average) as well as how under (or over) you are. This was always the best way to see if you were burning data too fast or too slow. It also gave you a way to generally plan and manage things better. I also added (as stated) a percentage to the time remaining. If the progress bars never come back, this at least gives you an indication of how you're burning wrt to the percents in the donuts.

Here's a mock-up of the Mac version:

Yeah, it's kind of geeky, but I thought I'd share. Haven't spent much time on the Usage History graph, but have some general ideas for that as well.

Comments?

[MarkJFine]

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@GabeU wrote:

Do you mean the first time one checks the history?  

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That's may be more accurate.

[GabeU]

Okay.  So it appears that the meter's usage only reflects from the first time it is looked at (the usage, not just the meter in general), whereas the online usage (on the myAccount site) updates on a more regular basis.  My online usage is now reflecting my correct usage to about five minutes ago, but the meter's usage is still stuck where it was. 

I wonder if resetting the modem would update the meter's usage tally.  I might try that in a few minutes.

[GabeU]

Reboot didn't matter.  The meter's usage tally is still the same, reflecting what it did when it was first looked at.  

But, again, it appears that the online usage tally does update, though I don't know how often.  I'm going to keep checking it.  It updated around 10:24PM, from what the usage meter's tally was showing, to what was current.  We'll see how long it takes to update again.   

[GabeU]

@dfbeck

@C0RR0SIVE

@MarkJFine

Well, I stand corrected.  The usage graph only reflects what has been used up until the point of first looking at it in the Usage Meter on that given day.  The online usage graph, OTOH, does seem to update once in a while.  How often, I don't know.  Took over an hour to do so for me.  😞

Hopefully they get it to a point where the usage tally is shown in realtime, just like one's remaining data.  

[dfbeck]

I have two computers side by side and one I set up to just flip back and forth between the meter and the graph. From 3 am to 6 pm, neither updated. I don't know where it was reading data useage from but it had to be early since it only showed 155.6 megs used. That never changed even after several dozen Youtube videos. I can't say I care for that at all. As I described, on the 11th I ended up allowing two updates and didn't know until the next day that 17+ gigs had been used. That's really a near useless means of tracking data. You won't know you've far exceeded your data until it's too late.

In the process of checking remaining data I just found that it DID up date from 10/24 to 10/25 indicating I had used 2 megs. I have never seen it update before! I watched this all day yesterday and the data on the 24th matched the data on the 23rd. What's up with this? Is there some prompt that causes it to update or is it just random? Someone has to know how this works.

Here is how I'm estimating that I won't exceed my data if I limit myself to 1.3 gigs per day. Pretty lame, huh. I couldn't find a photo editor here if there is one. Anyway, I'm going to try to find out what's up with the updating, or lack of it. I want to be able to tell if I'm exceeding before I do it. I don't know about everyone else but now I know what I'm looking at, I don't particularly care for that aspect.

[dfbeck]

I don't know if I over looked it or it had not updated but my data usage yesterday was 2.2 gigs which is over what I can use to avoid exceeding the service data. I could almost swear that yesterdays usage was reading the same as the day before, as if it had not updated by 3 am this morning 10/25. It's possible I overlooked it but I doubt that. I've been watching it hour by hour. I also used the meter in My Account and it may update but it never did during the time I watched it, about 3 hours. I finally had to shut it down since I had too many pages open. Does anyone else have a relatively slow loading time for either email or this Community page, like 40 to 50 seconds to quest the login page and then another 40 or so seconds to open them? Doesn't sound like a lot but as I keep geting booted out of the Community page it's annoying.

[Gwalk900]

@dfbeck

I too am not pleased with the latest releases of the various HughesNet meters.

As mentioned previously there are five meters in total. Three are "usage" meters and two are "History" meters.

Usage Meters:

#1: The SCC meter found within the Modem at 192.168.0.1

#2: The Download Status Meter found as a download from the MyAccount page

#3: The MyAccount meter seen on the MyAccount main webpage.

History Meters:

#4: The "history" meter as part of the Download Status Meter

#5" The History display found as part of the MyAccount webpage

Of the five meters the most accurate and up to date is #3

This is the meter that calculates your data usage and is used to update all the other meters.

For clarity it is this one:

Here you can see data used and data remaining for both service plan and bonus periods.

When I need accuracy, that is the one I use.

In addition I suggest using a personal router that tracks data per device. I use an Asus RT-AC3100 running the Asuswrt-Merlin firmware.

It provides usage per device per day:

Statistics for all device in total and hours when usage occured:

It also displays usage and hours for a single device plus which applications were active:

I seldom have a need to use the HughesNet meters to manage my data.

[Gwalk900]

"I also used the meter in My Account and it may update but it never did during the time I watched it,"

Once loaded, its a static page. You have to "refresh" the meter display by clicking the yellow highlighted icon:

[dfbeck]

I understand the My Account means of tracking data but having to manually refresh the page to get data usage updated is not something I consider user friendly. At over $100 a month I would think I could expect something as simple and apparently complaint free as the real time bar that tracked data versus time that was available until Hughes presented the new and not so improved version. I also don't plan on purchasing another router or program to track data usage per device since the only concern I have is total data used in comparison to time lapsed. That ability would have come in handy on the 12th when two devices called for updates (unattended) though neither could be interrupted. I was also expecting one meter or usage tracking program to inform me of how much data was being gulped down but the damage done wasn't evident until 12:01 am of the next day. I use Worx to track usage by the hour but this does not tell me if I am going to exceed my allotted data until a warning flashes up on the Hughesnet page telling me that I'm headed for trouble if I don't mend my ways. I may wish to download an item from Netflix but there is no way to tell if I have horded enough data versus time to stay out of Hughesnet data abuse jail. The page they did away with served the purpose quite effectively which is probably why it was axed. I'll take a better photo of a rather ridiculious method of estimating available data, ie; a ruler on the graph, and send it to someone at Hughes who deals with these issues. I can't believe I'm the only person who does not believe that newer is better.

I do appreciate the information on refreshing the My Account meter as I hadn't tried that. I only used it to compare to the other usage contraptions.

[dfbeck]

PS, To those who were watching either the meter or the graph to see if it up dates, I watched the graph from 4:35 pm until 7:30 pm and though it had updated once earlier in the day, it did not change at all during this period. This included starting and stopping it and even as harse a halt as a power outage which I didn't anticipate meaning I hadn't yet moved the computers power cord to the UPS unit. Shame on me, Windows hates that.

[dfbeck]

I read the explanation of the My Account meter where it says, 'The usage meter is ....tool that allows you to track your data usage in real time.' But unless I'm missing something it is not tracked 'against' real time. And unless it is stated elsewhere it doesn't advise you to update usage by refreshing. Did you discover that by accident or is it instructed somewhere else? I know I'm being **bleep**y about this but it was so simple, and functional, before they decided to improve it to make it virtually useless as far as knowing how close to exceeding your allot you are, or I am.

[MarkJFine]

Added a dashed green line denoting the average usage per day required to burn for the rest of the period as a planning line, just to satisfy my own curiosity.

If you have a low-burn period as shown, it asymptotically gets out of control and literally crushes the daily usage chart, almost negating it. Using a logarithmic scale makes it even uglier for large plan sizes. It would need a third scale of it's own, and that would just clutter this even more with more axis than graph.May keep it for the rest of this month just to see how it pans out with potentially higher usage, but I'm not taking any bets as I really don't think it adds anything whatever as a management tool.

Perhaps instead of a graph, it could be added as a singular amount that updates under "Service Plan Data Remaining" at the bottom, in terms of MB/day. But again, not sure how really useful that is from a management perspective that you couldn't already do from the total provided.

[GabeU]

@C0RR0SIVE

Now that makes absolutely ZERO sense.  It didn't update, but it was refelcting what I had used up until 8:59PM, verified against Glasswire.  That 209.1MB total matched what I had used through that time.  None of it was from yesterday, which also matched to yesterday's Glasswire.  

I'm going to continue to check, as there's no way it could have counted anything when I first turned it on as there was no usage for the 24th up until that point.  None.  So that 209.1MB is from today, after I had started up and after I had first checked the meter (checking my remaining data).