Just throwing an idea and would like someone with more knowledge of the hardware to tell me if it’s possible.
Various Low energy mode where gotenna go from sleep mode to listening/broadcasting every X minutes/hours.
In other words all gotenna in an area could wake up at a specific time every 15/30/60/120 minute to do their things.
The assumption is that it would extent the battery life a lot and help build connections using battery powered relays in the wild.
Interesting concept, but does this assume that goTennas are actively sending/receiving all the time like Wi-Fi radios?
Currently, they only actively broadcast when a message is sent or relayed. Listening, as far as I know, hardly uses any power at all.
Battery size apart, If it’s “hardly any power at all” then my phone who’s doing hundreds of background process is lasting longer than the gotenna.
How long does your goTenna last before going dead?
My Moto Z Play has a 3,500 mAh battery and is rated to last 50 hours on a charge. That would net a 70 mA average draw. My usage is averaging 105 mA with a runtime of 33.2 hours.
After reading into some specs, found here:
http://www.5khz.com/2017/10/08/gotenna-mesh-teardown/
the goTenna Mesh has a 589 mAh battery, so to achieve its rated 24-hour battery life, that means average current draw is 24 mA assuming the batttery is at 100% rated capacity. Looking at the Bluetooth transceiver spec sheet, its rated max current draw is 80 mA. The goTenna connects using Bluetooth Low-Energy, so I doubt it actually draws that much in this use case. The ARM processor draws 30-185 mA based on load when active.
So, given these current ratings, I’d say the goTenna already spends a decent amount of time in sleep mode, at least as much as it can and stay connected.