Using a HotSpot Remote Location to activate cam via app

I just purchased my “burner phone” for the cabin; its a Moto e 8008. I have the Hotspot on since Tuesday and noted each day it takes about 22 hours for the battery to drop from 100% to 8%. I plan on taking enough data for another 8 days to get a confident average and then program a timer to charge the phone accordingly. I did, however, have to locate as many apps as I could to “stop background data” since the “idle” hotspot was still using about 40 mbs per day or 1.2 gb per month. So, I am assuming that this (background apps) was the issue. I am also turning the Wyze cameras to OFF and viewing twice a day for 30 seconds per camera to validate Wyze will function long term in this configuration per your recommendation; I have no Cloud or Data Card for the cameras. Now, if you can tolerate my ignorance, I have additional questions about Root vs Unrooted, Automagic, etc. especially since I want to decrease the Data usage by turning on/off the Hotspot via SMS per your other recommendation. So…

I now have to determine if this phone is “rooted”, if it is then I need to download this ( https://automagic4android.com/download_en.html) to the phone and I will then practice to reproduce your example of “1234” = Turn on Hotspot or “4321” = Turn off Hotspot. It appears that the link for automagic is free but “untrustworthy” versus the Google Play AutomationManager for IoT is $9.99. I assume you trust the automagic link…:flushed:…so I will download that one on my cabin burner Moto phone. With that being said, how do I validate if my Moto (cabin) phone is rooted or non-rooted? I assume I want my phone to be “rooted” which means I can access / control over my phone; I have been going cross eyed reading articles and watching some “shaky Youtubes” on what to do and not to do…in other words, i do not trust everything i find especially on Youtube.
Thank you in advance. I have 18 days before I depart for the cabin to learn Rooting, Automagic, and validate the SMS commands😎

While you wait for @Simple… Rooting is not the same as just installing apps from “unknown sources”. The latter is easy, quite common, and relatively safe if you trust the source. I don’t know whether Automagic requires root but it does not appear to. I also know nothing about this app. An Asian language version of it appears on APKPure, which is one of the two sites I trust.

I actually purchased Automagic when it was still for sale through the Play store. I’m actually more of an IOS guy but use quite a bit of Android for home Automation.

Automation Manager is a great product supported by very attentive developer. I actually use his product to control my phone charging as well. You can set a rule with AM to turn power onto a IOT power plug based on high and low charges. I turn on at 40% and off at 80%. I hear that is better for long life and less battery bulge issues.

Before you go to lengths of rooting… I frankly am weak on that as any function I needed worked without it. Last rooting was probably 8-10 years ago IIRC. … anyway… see if the Data ON/OFF functions as is with Automagic.

It does look like there is a lot of info on how to root it… some of the real cheap burner phones don’t see to allow for easy rooting.

I’ve just confirmed that the free and open source “Easer” app is perfectly capable of acting upon receipt of a particular SMS message. I’m 88.7% sure you can use it to get your desired effect. Unfortunately it’s a bit of a pain to set up.

Yes!
Use a MiFi of whatever type you prefer. We have used a LTE connected iPad and use as hotspot, worked reasonably fine even with Verizon’s network being far from ideal. Saw some stuttering video but that was not a matter of Wyze, that was a matter of long latency on the VZW network.

When you don’t want cameras to upload anything, turn them off via your phone app. They will still remain connected but should draw so little data over the cell network it is insignificant.
I see many people trying to make this far more complex than it needs to be.

Two. You see two people trying to help the poster, who is very concerned with keeping bandwidth usage to a minimum over long periods and surviving power outages. Your contribution is “don’t worry about it”? I told him as much a month ago - do you have metrics to support this?

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Well, fairly for those who are truly worried, it is easy to measure how much data the cameras will send when “off” (not disconnected - which would be zero). That can be done on a home network.
Do I have metrics? No, but the amount is slim. Heck, not even with my first two cameras on all the time, triggered by cats and dog, did I see any real difference in bandwidth use here at home. And I have tracked monthly usage since February 2012 (so I guess I do have some metrics).

Sometimes the race for finding a complex solution is worse than accepting a smaller (negligible) amount of bandwidth used for “heartbeat” and the ability to keep cameras on “standby”.

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Is the app named “EASER”?

Yes it is. I got it from the F-Droid repository (app store). If you’re not very technical you might not want to bother. I found it awkward to configure but it’s effective. The receive SMS setting is straightforward – see screenshot – but there are three distinct pieces involved in configuring a running trigger like this.

I just tested Automagic on an older device and it didn’t mention needing root. It will be something you want to try out. It did turn data off on/off via SMS.

Screen Shot 2020-10-02 at 6.51.35 AM Screen Shot 2020-10-02 at 6.52.29 AM

Yup, Easer can do it too. :slight_smile:

Obviously, don’t turn on Airplane Mode. :wink:

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I haven’t used Easer before but Automagic install is simple and learning curve isn’t very steep.

Hopefully OP can find a solution from what we have all presented.

Long term Easer will likely win out as it appears to have lots of support while Automagic may eventually not work depending on the Android version and no longer supported.

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Just installed Automagic. Will practice tonight/weekend on Simple’s examples provided within. I also wanted to download EASER but I am unable to find that link.

I see a download link here

https://youtu.be/4HmNBfrw4Yk

Note sure this is still relevant but it appears to be a tutorial on how to turn mobile data on/off.

Thank you very much. For some reason I could only come up with “Eraser” android app🙄

If you’re going to start exploring open source apps like this I’d suggest just installing the main F-Droid app and then using it (as you would the Play or Amazon store apps) to automatically download and install apps such as Easer from their repository. Very simple and easy, no account (and never any money) involved.

There’s a download link on their home page.

Although I’m sure there is a better way to do this, I believe this may be the start I needed before my departure for the cabin; I confirmed a text to my moto e 8008 “burner / cabin phone” turns on)off my hotspot. I did, however, need to download the Automagic Workaround to permit direct access to my Hotspot.
Although this is all I need, I am now a little obsessed in learning more.
Anymore YouTube’s, Forums, etc you have would be greatly appreciated wrt Automagic. THANKS TO EVERYBODY FOR YOUR TIME

That should work. Let us know how it goes.