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.
- “off, but connected to USB external power” (described as a speical low-power mode in the SDK docs)
- “on, relay mode” (supposedly lower than paired mode)
- “paired mode with partner device in range”
- “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
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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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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
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