3G Watchdog keeps track of Dell Streak data usage
This article was written by Brodie Duncan.
In the current age of data caps and throttled speeds on our Dell Streaks, we are made to watch how much mobile data we are using to avoid large charges from our carriers.
I discovered a pair of excellent apps that keeps track of the data usage on my Streak: 3G Watchdog and its premium version, 3G Watchdog Pro. These fantastic apps simply tell you how much data you have left out of your data limit, how much data you will have used by the end of the month, and when you will reach 100% of your data cap if you're going to hit it earlier than the end of the month.
3G Watchdog gives very accurate readings, and a bonus feature of the premium version is that it can tell you data usage by application. This requires Android 2.2+ and unfortunately doesn’t work on the Streak due to something Dell did while making the Froyo build of Android for the Streak. This feature may or may not work on DJSteve’s StreakDroid ROM; I don't know because I'm running the stock official build of Froyo.
I'm hoping that this will be fixed when we, hopefully one day, get Gingerbread for our Streaks, but I guess I shouldn't count on it. But even without that feature working on the device, 3G Watchdog is still incredibly useful for those of us with data caps or who just want to see how much data we are using.
Another wonderful feature of the apps is that if you hit x% (x is a modifiable value), it will automatically disable GPRS, EDGE, 3G, etc. and will only re-enable these when your data renews at the end of the month. This is very handy if you want to prevent hitting 100%, guaranteeing you will never get any data charge again. Note: This feature requires you to install either APNdroid or JuiceDefender, both of which are available in the Market.
I strongly encourage you to download 3G Watchdog, which will "[guard] you against costly Internet overages." I worked out that using this app for one month with the feature enabled by APNdroid, I saved around £50 in overage charges I would have received if I didn’t have this app installed.
Links: Market (Streak) | Market (web)
This article was written by Brodie Duncan.
