HELP! Extremely high wifi usage across iOS device in the network.

[jakkhou]

I've been seeing some extremely high data usage across my iOS devices on the network, which leads to over usage charge from Xfinity. 

A few examples:

• My iPhone shows 20G of download at 7am which is an hour I have no activity on my phone.
• My Macbook Pro shows a 15G of download on the hour I arrived home, the laptop was not open but just connected to the wifi in the background.
• My wife's Macbook Pro shows a 60G of download on the hour she arrived home, the laptop was not open but just connected to the wifi in the background.

There were other days that my household sees 250G of data usage. iCloud is off on photos, we had to pause wifi for some devices so we don't get these insane usage.  Please help! 
My laptopWife laptopMy iphone

[olavrb]

About the reported data usage in the Google Home app: It's inaccurate/ incorrect. Known problem going on for long, see:

• 221010: https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Nest-Wifi/x/m-p/256076
• 220907: https://www.reddit.com/r/NestWiFi/comments/x8ewtf
• 220906: https://www.reddit.com/r/GoogleWiFi/comments/x6y0i4
• 220806: https://www.reddit.com/r/GoogleWiFi/comments/whpo5a
• 220704: https://www.reddit.com/r/GoogleWiFi/comments/vr377p
• 220628: https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Nest-Wifi/x/m-p/190592 
• 220627: https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Nest-Wifi/x/m-p/189869
• 220622: https://www.reddit.com/r/GoogleWiFi/comments/vhphn8
• 180306: https://www.reddit.com/r/GoogleWiFi/comments/82ivtx

So don't trust it for getting insight on how much data your devices are actually using. If you check Google Home reported usage last 30 days, it likely does not match what your ISP is saying.

---

About using less data on your devices: Video is usually what uses the most, so less video streaming will likely help.

Windows, iOS and Android also has a setting for defining a network as "metered", which could help in reducing the network usage.

• Windows: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/7b33928f-a144-b265-97b6-f2e95a87c408
• Android: https://support.google.com/android/answer/9654714?hl=en
• iOS: https://support.apple.com/en-vn/HT210596

From my quick Google searching, it does not seem like MacOS has such a "metered connection" / "low data mode" feature.

[jakkhou]

Thank you for the info, there are really helpful.

Is there any bug on actual data "leak" ( sorry for the lack of better word ) from Nest wifi? I also got a notice from my ISP on data over usage so they seem to correlate and not just a reporting problem. 

[olavrb]

"Is there any bug on actual data "leak" ( sorry for the lack of better word ) from Nest wifi?"

Not that I know of.

---

Does the reported usage from your ISP actually match what the Google Home app says? Withing margin of error of course, I'm talking ball range here. 🙂

[jakkhou]

It actually does correlate to the usage reported from ISP. My Nov data usage ( from ISP ) so far has gone over 1200GB compared to previous months that average <500GB. There is a substantial and sustained spike since Nov on the higher usage devices at home ( phones and laptops ), and there were no new devices or noticeable human behavioral changes. 

Curious if there's any firmware update on Nest wifi devices around early Nov?

[olavrb]

There was an update in late september:

• https://support.google.com/googlenest/topic/6318633
• https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/12506728?hl=en

I've escalated this thread in hope of Google officials chiming in.

---

Still, you should check the devices too for this sudden bump in data usage. Could also be a recent iOS, MacOS or Windows update. It's more likely than a Nest Wifi update being the cause of devices suddenly using more data.

[jakkhou]

Appreciated Olavrb. I'll keep debugging hopefully we can get some official chime in! 

[Jhonleanmel]

Hey folks, 

We appreciate your help here, @olavrb.
@jakkhou, I wanted to follow up and see if you are still in need of any help. Please let me know if you are still having any concerns or questions from here, as I would be happy to take a closer look and assist you further.

Thanks,
Mel

[AbigailF]

Hi everyone,

Chiming in to see if you still need assistance with this. Hope the previous post helped. Let us know if you have additional questions ― we'd love to help.

Best,
Abi

[AbigailF]

Hi folks,

We haven't heard from you in a while so we'll be locking this thread if there is no update within 24 hours. If you have any new issues, updates or just a discussion topic, feel free to start a new thread in the Community.

Regards,
Abi