High data usage for "Find devices" on Apple Watch 7

[hanser]

I have a AW 7 since November, but normally I do not have a cellular data plan, because I have always Wifi. Now I was away for some time and had a small data plan with 500 MB for the trip, and I was surprised that the biggest usage were over 200 MB under "Apple Watch only apps", more specifically the "Find devices" app. How has this happened and how can I prevent this in future, without switching off "Find my" totally? I have no explanation, any help would be appreciated.

 

[hanser]

So nobody has any idea? What happens when I don't allow cellular data for Find my app?

 

[chabig]

200MB is a drop in the 500GB bucket. It’s 0.04%. Don’t think about it.

If you turn off data for find my, you”ll lose all of the benefits of Find My when the phone doesn’t have wifi, including your ability to find it if it’s lost. Also, your participation in the Find My network helps others.

 

[Howard2k]

It's incredibly difficult to estimate what the usage could be. If you have 100 air tags that are constantly moving all over the place and your phone is tracking them, that's a very different scenario to having just a phone and a watch that are always kept together.

I used 14MB of Find My cellular data last two weeks but did not spend much time away from wifi. 200MB doesn't seem like an alarmingly large number, but as noted you can just turn off Find My if it's a significant concern. It will use data since it's tracking your devices.

 

[hanser]

200MB is a drop in the 500GB bucket. It’s 0.04%. Don’t think about it.

If you turn off data for find my, you”ll lose all of the benefits of Find My when the phone doesn’t have wifi, including your ability to find it if it’s lost. Also, your participation in the Find My network helps others.

Sorry, it was a typo. I had a 500 MB plan for a week. 500 GB would be totally absurd. Normally 500 MB would be more than enough for my needs (some messages, maps). Find my used up more than half of the data (274MB)!

 

[hanser]

It's incredibly difficult to estimate what the usage could be. If you have 100 air tags that are constantly moving all over the place and your phone is tracking them, that's a very different scenario to having just a phone and a watch that are always kept together.

I used 14MB of Find My cellular data last two weeks but did not spend much time away from wifi. 200MB doesn't seem like an alarmingly large number, but as noted you can just turn off Find My if it's a significant concern. It will use data since it's tracking your devices.

I have no air tags. Taken together the family has several iPads and Macs but they were not moving at the time. I cannot explain 274 MB (to be precise) use of data. Watch and iPhone were together.

 

[chabig]

Sorry, it was a typo. I had a 500 MB plan for a week. 500 GB would be totally absurd. Normally 500 MB would be more than enough for my needs (some messages, maps). Find my used up more than half of the data (274MB)!

OK. That's different! I think there are benefits to participating in the Find My network. But in a situation like yours, you might choose to turn it off while you're on a limited data plan. Go to System Preferences > Apple ID > iCloud, then turn off Find My.

 

[Howard2k]

If you just turn off cellular data access then perhaps you'd still get all the benefits while using Wifi. Just won't be able to track without it.

 

[mk313]

I have no idea what could be causing that, but just for reference, I checked my usage (I didn't even know you could do that) and total current period is 2.3 GB (I have no idea how long it considers the current period to be, but it's definitely longer than a month as my highest ever monthly usage was 1.1 GB).

Out of the 2.3 GB, only 1.6 MB was used by Find My System Services, 210KB was used by Find People, and there was 0 data usage for Find Items or Find Devices. I know that doesn't help you solve your issue, but it does point to your usage not being normal (or at least not close to mine).

A couple of thoughts: Q did you try restarting your watch? Sounds basic, but definitely worth a try if you haven't. If the app is staying on when it shouldn't, , there's a chance that a restart will fix it.

Also, how long was the time period that the watch was on cellular? Was it one day or a few weeks? If it was like 3 weeks, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Although it seems high, I've only gone over 500 MB 3 times since I've had my watches. If you don't stream music or podcasts, it's likely that you won't come close either.

Also, did you kick off any searches for other devices while you were on cellular data? It seems like sending a request to search for devices (especially if you have a lot of devices) could use up some data (more so than just the passive app running in the background, as could sending a request to play a sound or whatever, but even at that, 200MB sounds like a lot of usage.

I don't think you'd have to turn off Find My completely, you can just turn off Find Devices from using cellular data. If it were me, I'd probably try that short term to see if it fixes the problem. I'd wonder if the data usage then migrates to another app. the only downside is that you then can't use your watch to find your other devices, at least not while it's on cellular.

It doens't look like you can remove the Find Devices app (but you can remove Find Items & Find People) which is a shame because the one time I had battery life issues, it was due to a faulty app (audible) that was running constantly in the background & burning up battery life & data. Deleting the app & then reinstalling solved the issue, but that doens't appear to be an option here.

One final thought, do you use the Find Devices complication on any of your watch faces? If so, it could be refreshing more frequently than normal. If so, you might want to try removing it from the faces for a couple of days & see if the data usage slows down.