Google Maps Moves to Paid API Access 11th June

Posted on
Wed May 02, 2018 7:53 pm
GlennNZ offline
User avatar
Posts: 1555
Joined: Dec 07, 2014
Location: Central Coast, Australia

Google Maps Moves to Paid API Access 11th June

HI all,

see:
https://cloud.google.com/maps-platform/ ... g-changes/


This is a fairly major change which will affect a number of plugins and websites/and multiple apps I suspect.

Google has moved away from free API usage and from the 11th June will now charge and requires VISA/Billing details for everyone using their service.

From my testing it would appear FindFriendsMini WILL go over the free limit if set to update every 5minutes. (this depends on numbers of geofences and friends you have setup)

This plan may change (?probably not it would seem), and I will have a think about the best way to move forward
Inital Options
re:
Counting all API calls and then limiting API access well under free-limit,
Using another API,
Disabling API access altogether and limiting some of the information we currently use.


Glenn

Posted on
Wed May 02, 2018 8:56 pm
GlennNZ offline
User avatar
Posts: 1555
Joined: Dec 07, 2014
Location: Central Coast, Australia

Re: Google Maps Moves to Paid API Access 11th June

lanbrown wrote:
I have no idea how much it would require, but what about switching to something else, maybe OpenStreetMap?


No idea either - but certainly other options now become far more attractive.

It will be interesting whether google goes ahead as planned given the not-surprising negative feedback so far.

G

Posted on
Wed May 02, 2018 10:02 pm
GlennNZ offline
User avatar
Posts: 1555
Joined: Dec 07, 2014
Location: Central Coast, Australia

Google Maps Moves to Paid API Access 11th June

Everything reasonable seems to be paid.

Suspect may move away from Google and other APIs altogether - which will remove travel time as a result, and just use Distance (which can calculate)

Will lose the maps jpg/png's .... bit may be able to use http call and save and not api

May see if can optionally call these aspects when needed for display purposes. Not sure easy to link to Control Page being shown..

Glenn

Posted on
Thu May 03, 2018 9:27 pm
RogueProeliator offline
User avatar
Posts: 2501
Joined: Nov 13, 2012
Location: Baton Rouge, LA

Re: Google Maps Moves to Paid API Access 11th June

I know many won't want to enable billing, but once you enable the billing you do get $200/month credit to use. Basically, they are effectively raising the limit of free usage for those that have provided billing information.

I don't know if I would do it unless I was darn sure I wasn't going to go over the limit OR if there were a warning in place to be sure I would be alerted before charged. But it is an option.

Adam

Posted on
Fri May 04, 2018 7:43 am
Colorado4Wheeler offline
User avatar
Posts: 2794
Joined: Jul 20, 2009
Location: Colorado

Re: Google Maps Moves to Paid API Access 11th June

You would think that as much as Google tracks every tiny thing you do that they would keep this free, but I suspect that they have gotten what they wanted out of it and now it's leech city on the API. I have built dozens of web sites that use the Google maps API that will all break. For me, on issues like this, I actually use a pre-paid VISA card so that I don't get a mystery Google bill for $10K one day - yes, that happened to me on Google Adwords when I first used it and I've been gun shy of any kind of open billing ever since.

My Modest Contributions to Indigo:

HomeKit Bridge | Device Extensions | Security Manager | LCD Creator | Room-O-Matic | Smart Dimmer | Scene Toggle | Powermiser | Homebridge Buddy

Check Them Out Here

Posted on
Fri May 04, 2018 3:56 pm
siclark offline
Posts: 1960
Joined: Jun 13, 2017
Location: UK

Re: Google Maps Moves to Paid API Access 11th June

Pretty sure I read that you can set a quota to limit costs once you've used the free $200. Just set that to zero, or a few $ a month.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Posted on
Fri May 04, 2018 10:21 pm
DVDDave offline
Posts: 470
Joined: Feb 26, 2006
Location: San Jose, CA

Re: Google Maps Moves to Paid API Access 11th June

This sucks for the Automatic plugin also although I think it's unlikely that one will use anywhere near the $200 allotment. Do you think we will get status on how much we're using or a warning when we reach a certain threshold?

Posted on
Sat May 05, 2018 4:19 pm
GlennNZ offline
User avatar
Posts: 1555
Joined: Dec 07, 2014
Location: Central Coast, Australia

Re: Google Maps Moves to Paid API Access 11th June

Yeah sucks. Agree with all the comments

I agree that no-one really wants to enter billing/VISA details for a 'free-service' - slight issue and its not free anymore!

Have come to conclusion that need to move away from using the API altogether.

Have started making some changes, have stopped using distance-matrix API for travel-times and road distance. Using calculated GPS as crow-flies distance and then use adjustable travel time km/hr to give an approx time. Actually seems to be only a few minutes off the google result - so so far so good.
Also have added check to only update map if distance moved >100meters - this has cut down the calls enormously, but have later come to conclusion that need to remove API altogether so doesn't really solve that.

Was trying to do something sideways - use wkhtmltoimage to download html map and then format/save as png and use that bypassing api altogether - doesn't quite work...

G

Posted on
Sat May 05, 2018 4:41 pm
DVDDave offline
Posts: 470
Joined: Feb 26, 2006
Location: San Jose, CA

Re: Google Maps Moves to Paid API Access 11th June

Sounds good. Thanks for jumping right on this!

Posted on
Sat May 05, 2018 8:46 pm
GlennNZ offline
User avatar
Posts: 1555
Joined: Dec 07, 2014
Location: Central Coast, Australia

Re: Google Maps Moves to Paid API Access 11th June

New Version 0.8.0

Removes all Google API usage completely.

https://github.com/Ghawken/IndigoPlugin ... i/releases



Changes:


Use as Crow-Flies GPS calculation (rather than google calculated road/car travel distance)
Change to travelTime to using adjustable speed to estimate travel time - 16.7 m/s (60km/hr) - plugin config setting to adjust
(Means traveltimes more approximate than before - but on testing seems as good as past results)

Remove API key from Map Image Generation - still using GoogleMaps just not with API key.
This may break on 11th June - may not... if so will deal with it then.

Add new Friend Device States:
distanceSinceCheck - meters moved since last information received if >100 will redo maps
mapLastUpdated - time of last map generation
otherDistance/homeDistance in meters as crow flies
otherTime/homeTime - calculated travel based on config m/s setting
otherTime/homeTime in seconds currently

Add Action:
Regenerate all Maps

Change to only updating maps when distance travelled > 100meters

Add Additional Map Sources for after 11th June..

Some positives and negatives with each
- ArcGis World Imagery - Satellite Map Similiar to Google Maps Satellite. No Central Marker possible - add to the control page would be my suggestion
- ArcGis World 2d
- ArcGis World Street Map
- OpenStreetMaps - Good quality street map. Can use markers seperate for each device.

Add Friend Device Options 'Mapping Label': Primarily for OpenStreetMap
eg. lightblue1 etc
Color and then displayed number
Can label each device with different number.

None of these options easily allow the ALL map including all devices.

They all allow bigger map sizes up to 2180 or so - if needed.

Please test and let me know if any issues and will post to Store.

Glenn

Posted on
Sun May 06, 2018 9:56 am
ZachBenz offline
Posts: 163
Joined: Feb 08, 2014

Re: Google Maps Moves to Paid API Access 11th June

GlennNZ wrote:
Yeah sucks. Agree with all the comments

I agree that no-one really wants to enter billing/VISA details for a 'free-service' - slight issue and its not free anymore!

Have come to conclusion that need to move away from using the API altogether.
G


I may well be in the minority, but personally I would like to retain the option to use the Google API with the plugin. I find it much more robust than the other potential options (and already have an account with billing info entered for other reasons). That is, just be able to optionally turn on Google API usage for folks like myself who still want to use it.

ZachBenz's Plugins: RingForIndigo

Page 1 of 1

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 0 guests

cron