Hi folks,
If this is repetitive information, please forgive me, as I don't recall seeing this posted before. I'm here to let you know (you may already!) that Public Mobile community member @IWIK has built a great data usage tracking application for Android, named "Data Witness". You can find it in the Google Play store here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.iwik.datawitness
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EDIT 2021-Sept-29: you no longer need to reach out to IWIK to get a free voucher. Instead, just install the "Data Witness PM" app, which is free for use on Public Mobile network:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.iwik.datawitnesspm
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IMPORTANT NOTE: The app does cost a small amount on Google Play Store, but, thanks to @IWIK's generosity, he is giving it away FREE for Public Mobile users! To get it free, send @IWIK a private message, and [s]he will respond with a download code to get it for free.
What does it do?
Once installed and configured (more on that shortly), you can track your data usage against your plan alltoment, and it allows flexibility for PM's 10, 30, and 90 day plans and any data amount you choose. The easiest way to use it once all set up is to create a (or multiple) widget on one of your home screens, and it looks roughly like this:
You can see it here in the middle of my screen. You can customize this highly when you create the widget--custom colours, opacity of the background, etc. But in a nutshell it shows you the percentage of your plan's data allotment you've used so far this term, how many days are left in this term, and even gives you bar graphs so you can visualize this info. You can see in mine, my days are slightly ahead of my data usage, so I'm tracking well to not run out of data during this 90 day cycle.
If you don't want to set up a widget, you can also get this info by just going into Data Witness:
Installing and configuring
You can install it from the Play store link I used above. Launch the app and there you can set up a number of configuration items. Here's the main config menu:
From here, you'll want to pop into General settings and set up you plan details:
Log into your PM self-serve account and grab your current data usage amount and use that in the first setting shwon above. At your next renewal date, this will reset automatically to zero, as DW will be with you from the start of that cycle instead of part way through. Set your data limit based on what's in your plan (I'm on the 6GB/90 days plan), and your plan length and your last cycle start date. This is all you need to do to start benefitting from Data Witness right away!
There are a number of other settings you can tweak. I don't fully understand all of them, but this is how I currently have mine set up:
(I'm not sure of the ramifications of not having it check while the screen is off.)
Here you can tell it (using the sliders) when to let you know you're getting close to using up your data, and optionally have a persistent notification (you probably don't want that on, but it's a personal preference).
That's all there is to setting it up and basic usage. As I mentioned, there are a ton of options to personalize your widget(s). First of all there are two widget sizes to choose from:
And once you choose one and place it on a home screen, a ton of settings:
Enjoy!
@IWIK Thanks again, downloaded and using now.
Question on using it: does it have to be monitoring whenever I have data on, or can I just tap the "FORCE USAGE CHECK NOW" button within the app at the end of the day and it will record all the data usage? I'm assuming the former, but I'm hoping either works.
Btw, I use "Nova Launcher" on my phone and had a problem adding the widgets. Perhaps it's just my phone, but this might help others.
Problem: after adding a widget, there is no background colour and not all elements within are visible.
Solution: resize the widget. It auto-magically fixes things for me.
I am attaching 3 screenshots to demonstrate this.
#1 is right after adding the widget (I circled the area in black); #2 is getting Nova Launcher to begin resizing; #3 is after increasing the height by 1 row.
