Excellent question.
This is common misunderstanding.
Why do you think it consumes a lot of traffic?
Because your router blinks a lot?
Your router blinks on every request made, it has nothing to do with the request size.
One signal measurement takes about 164 bytes.
Let's say you're connecting via cellular connection (otherwise traffic is irrelevant), on my box it takes about 120ms for one signal request (GigaBlue Quad Plus) to complete.
So with this we come to around 8 requests per second (1000 ms / 120 ms) when app is used on cellular connection.
Now we can calculate that in one second app will generate around 164 * 8 = 1313 bytes = 1.2 kilobytes per second
That makes it around 77 kilobytes per minute or 4.5 megabytes PER HOUR.
And that's only if you're constantly on signal meter page.
If you're not on signal meter page, there is no traffic except one request every 15 seconds to get current service name.
When you're fixing your dish you would want your router to blink as much as possible.
Every blink means you get a signal read out, more signal readings per second = easier to point your dish.
That particular app works like this: tell me how much do I have to wait between requests --> make request --> wait XXX --> make request
This will always limit app to maximum of 2 requests per second.
Enigma Signal Meter works like this: make request --> wait for response (limited to max 5 sec) --> make request
There is no waiting, no limit of requests per second, it just gets reads as fast as possible which is what you want when you're fixing your dish.
Another problem with technique in the app you specified is that you can actually get false reading.
Suppose app makes 5 requests. First one takes 7 seconds to complete, all other take less than 200 ms.
You would get result from the first request last, since it took more time to finish.
Requests are not ordered, they are shuffled.
Enigma Signal Meter will show instant reaction without any waiting, and you get signal reading in ordered manner.
Also, Enigma Signal Meter has timing for each request (and average timing for last 30 requests).
Why? So you don't wonder if connection works when levels are not changing.
You can see the app keep getting requests because timings changes.
And average request time comes in handy when you need to position your phone to get best WiFi signal.
Hope this explains it.
Regards.
Edited by shax, 15 October 2019 - 10:24.