A (hopefully) simple power question

Product feedback & support
1

It appears there are roughly five power consumption modes for the GTM. It’d be useful to know what the nominal power draw is for each.

  1. “off, but connected to USB external power” (described as a speical low-power mode in the SDK docs)
  2. “on, relay mode” (supposedly lower than paired mode)
  3. “paired mode with partner device in range”
  4. “on, not in relay, no paired partner in range”

I’ve seen both #2 and #3 described as being sustained by the internal battery for 24 hours, implying 24.5mA. #2 is supposed to be notably lower. Surely someone (at GoTenna, if nowhere else) has actually measured these? #4 has been anecdotally described as being 2x #3, and that seems plausible. But I am trying to calculate power-budget tradeoffs, and having actual numbers for 2, 3 and 4 would make that a lot less wonky.

–Richard

1 Like
2

Hey Richard,

Thanks for being a part of Mesh Community!

To answer your questions, there is no exact “battery life hours” since it all depends on the number of transmissions that go through a device. So for example, a goTenna unit that is standing in a relay mode with only a few transmissions will have a longer battery life, compared to a goTenna unit in relay mode with constant transmissions.

Each unit can be attached to a power bank to extend battery life.

Hope that help.

Naz

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3

What’s the nominal battery life for relay mode versus paired mode? Pretend they both are doing the same volume of message relay traffic.

Bonus points for relative life for connected-via-USB mode.

–Richard

4

Hi Richard,

The battery life, when in use, can reach up to 24 hours. A relay and a message uses the same power consumption. Hope that helps.

Best,
Naz