How to stop the Android App from using data

I use the Android app ( v2.20.21) with my Wyze camera.

Last week I found myself in the rare condition of only using mobile data for a week and was doing a lot of checking of what apps were using data. Wyze was using more than most apps so I thought I could pause it.

Pause worked, but it still used some data and unpaused itself the next day, using more data before I thought to stop it. So I thought, why not just stop the app. Stopping the app seemed to do nothing at all. The app came back to life as if I had done nothing.

Is the only solution to un-install it? That would stop the data usage. Until I wanted to check the camera and then I would have to re-install it, using more data. Definitely between a rock and a hard place.

Although I can stop background data, foreground data seems to be used even without opening the app. Am I missing a way to tell Android not to use any mobile data at all for an app?

Peter

There are a lot of programs that you can use to cut off access to mobile data except when you specifically allow it. In fact, I think Android 11 will natively allow you to set limits on individual apps to only have certain access while you have them loaded…but even without that, there are apps out there that will do this with more customization. I have used some that work with permissions and some that work as a local VPN to do this.

You would probably like the local VPN option. Kind of like a firewall. There are free options. You then tell the VPN to block Wyze’s access to the internet until you specifically allow it (ie: when you open the app…then disable access again when you close the app).

The problem with this is that Wyze will no longer be able to send you push notifications for things that use the internet, such as if a camera detects movement, now when Wyze tries to contact the app to tell it to send you a notification that motion was sensed on a camera (or whatever other notifications you might like), it can no longer inform you of these things. You will have to manually unblock it and log into the app to check things out yourself.

If that is acceptable, then look into local VPNs to restrict data access to anything you don’t specifically allow.

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Thank you. The VPN solution does seem to fit the problem.

Given the inability to reliably pause or shut down the app, it would be nice to have a feature built in to stop data temporarily when necessary.

Yes, obviously notifications are lost when data is off, but that is a reasonable tradeoff.