If you have a monthly data cap from your ISP, (or are experiencing network congestion) the following few features can help you stay on top of your bandwidth usage to avoid overage charges.
- Live Throughput
- Data Usage
- Monthly Data Plan & Alarm
- Large Bandwidth Usage Alarm
- Firewalla Data Usage Management Explained
Disclaimers:
- Firewalla measures the number of bytes excluding the IP (Internet Protocol Header) and MAC headers. Your service provider may measure differently. (Service providers may measure more since they are likely to include IP headers and MAC headers)
- There are certain long-lasting (TCP connections that never terminate) which will get accounted for when the session is terminated. Your service provider may measure differently.
- Please make sure you compare the number reported by Firewalla with your ISP's number
- Firewalla will only measure devices with monitoring on.
- More detail is explained here.
Live Throughput
If the App is connected to Firewalla's local network, you can view the Live Throughput chart on the detail page of each device and network. It will show you how much throughput your devices are using in real-time. If you are using dual wan, you'll find two charts showing the throughput on each WAN separately.
The live throughput chart can also be found inside each device/group/network's detail page.
Note: If you are using iOS, and not able to see the live throughput chart when connected to the local network, the "Local Network" Access for Firewalla App is turned on:
- On your iOS device's home screen (iOS 14 or later), tap Settings. Privacy -> Local network.
- Turn on local network access for the Firewalla app.
Data Usage
If you want to look into the data usage in the past, on your box's main page, scroll to the bottom of your screen, tap More, and you'll find the feature Data Usage.
This feature will show you a monthly data usage chart and a daily usage chart, you can tap on each chart to drill down and see the detail, so you can trace back and compare your data consumption with the previous months.
If you have the "monthly data plan" feature enabled, the monthly cycle will be calculated based on the reset date of your data plan.
Monthly Data Plan & Alarm
If you have a monthly data cap from your ISP, inside the data usage feature, tap to turn on Monthly Data Plan, and fill in your data plan and the reset date accordingly.
- Data Usage Plan - Based on your monthly data plan, set a limit or threshold
- Reset Date - When to start the tracking of a new cycle
In general, it is a good practice to set the limit 20% lower than your ISP limit. (For example, if you have a 1T limit, set 800GB). And always use the ISP number as the standard.
After Monthly Data Plan is enabled, you will find a new widget on your Box's main screen. It shows you how much data (and its percentage) has been used in your current month, and how many days are left in the cycle. You can tap on the panel and enter the data usage page directly.
Monthly Data Plan Alarm
If you'd like to receive alarms when the data usage exceeds 80%, 90%, and 100% of the threshold to avoid overage, make sure the alarms setting is set to Send Both Alarms & Notification.
Example:
The network has consumed 148.16 GB during the month, and the data plan is set to 100 GB. When the data usage reached the 100GB threshold, Firewalla will generate an alarm. Below is a sample of the alarm.
. 
Large Bandwidth Usage Alarm
Left Netflix or Youtube running? Firewalla can notify you when a device has consumed a large amount of bandwidth over a short period of time. It helps you identify devices or activities that are draining bandwidth and take action. This type of alarm is on by default, it can be turned off in Alarm Settings.
The alarm will show the following:
- Device - Which device is causing the alarm
- Data Transferred - Data transferred on the device in the last 24 hours
- Top Destinations - Top 5 destinations based on the data transfer volume
Finding Large Bandwidth Devices
If you want to know which device is using the most bandwidth in the past 24 hours.
- Tap on devices
- Tap on the top right sort button
- and sort on Top Download (or top upload)
Firewalla Data usage measurement explained
Measurements from Firewalla as written earlier are done over the data size (excluding IP header and MAC headers). Your ISP is likely to measure the whole packet size, which means, you may want to reduce the total usage alarm by a percentage.
For example, Comcast is reporting internet usage as 922GB, while Firewalla reporting 836.04GB. In this case, the ISP is measuring 10% more than Firewalla.
Comments
12 comments
In the latest version of Firewalla Gold’s firmware you cannot unmute the alert to configure a threshold. Any advice?
@Tommy,
The issue is fixed in the upcoming Testflight version 1.37 (49).
Please update the iOS App, and give it another try.
Is there a way to set a data usage limit per device per month? Not just the overall monthly plan limit.
@Ramon,
Sorry, we don't support data usage limit per device for now. The monthly data plan is designed for people who has a data limit imposed by ISP, to prevent the unexpected charges.
May I know why would you want this feature to be per device?
I have kids that usually spend a ridiculous amount of time streaming youtube videos, netflix content, etc, using most of my monthly data plan. If I’m able to either do traffic shaping and limit bandwidth/resolution for youtube, netflix, amazon prime, etc, or set a data cap per device (TVs mainly, but also PCs and tablets), I could be able to optimize my data usage at home and have enough for me, since now I’m working from home after COVID-19 and have to join multiple video calls everyday.
With COVID-19 I’m now having kids being schooled online, and a home office. Both mean my data usage is going up, and this might be for good, so I need ways to optimize my data usage and avoid exceeding the limit.
Is there something firewalla can do? Or a recommendation you might have? Open to suggestions. Thanks
@ Ramon,
Thanks for the detailed story. I'm afraid we don't have any data limit functions available now, will add it to our to-do list.
However, what we do have, is a set of flexible rules that allows you to fine-tune what sites a device can assess, and when it can access them. In your case, I'd suggest you block your kids' devices internet connection while allowing them to access learning sites required by the school, and schedule some allow rules for Youtube, Netflix, etc, for a certain amount of time per day.
Here is our guide on rules, and the "allow" feature is currently available to the early access user, will be officially published in several weeks: https://help.firewalla.com/hc/en-us/articles/360008521833-Manage-Rules
Hope this is helpful.
I would like to add another vote for per device bandwidth shaping/control. I am in a remote area where my only option for internet service is wireless. We have an Apple TV for all of our media access but this device alone can eat up 700+ GB per month. We've had threatening letters from our provider that we have to reduce our usage or be cut off.
Having the ability to set daily/weekly/monthly usage caps per device would be a tremendous help. No all streaming media takes up the same amount of data usage. Different providers (Disney +, Netfilx, etc) have very different usage needs, HD vs non HD, etc so it's hard to know when usage is getting high on a given day unless I monitor it all the time which is the opposite of what technology should be doing for me.
The Firewalla Gold is an amazing device, keep up the great work!
Per device shaping will be in 1.971. Please sign up here to join the early access mode, which you can play with it. https://help.firewalla.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360046872134-Early-Access-Onboarding
Any plans to have bandwidth usage/alerts by Wan connection? My issue is that I have two Wan connections setup; my primary does not have data caps and my backup does. My Primary however is not as stable due to it being cellular and it sometimes has issues based on where I live in the sticks so the backup kicks in regularly. Unfortunately I don’t see a way to track usage directly through Firewalla by WAN connection (only combined) unless I’m missing something.
I'm hitting data caps with my ISP and was looking to purchase this device to help keep us on track.
I mean it's nice to get an alert that I'm about to hit my data cap but honestly my ISP already tells me that. What I'm needing is a way to look at the past months data and determine if the cause is from streaming, steam updates, and or windows updates. Then if needed I could easily block steam updates and or limit Netflix until the following month.
I'm to the point I'm looking to setup something to cache steam and or windows updates.
So I have firewalla Red, the data bandwidth I am seeing is only in the kbs/second. I have a lot of computers in the house and cameras and I am currently watching youtube. There is no way the bandwidth is in the low kbs. Is this a bug?
@Bruce,
How about the network flows in the main screen? does it look normal, having large amount of upload/download?
Youtube doesn't download data all the time, it will download and buffer.
Thanks,
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