4 Optimizing Power Consumption

This chapter details the optimization of power consumption in the WLR089 device. Also, this provides the optimization tips, estimation and best settings to use on the WLR089 device for maximum battery expected lifetime.

• Maintain the data rate to maximum for transmitting the uplink packet (MAC_DEF_TX_CURRENT_DATARATE_EU) because the average current consumption in transmission scenarios are approximately same at every data rate. This has a direct impact in reducing the power consumption and increasing the expected battery lifetime.
• Set the device to Sleep mode whenever the device is not transmitting and remains in IDLE mode. This has a direct impact on the overall power consumption and improves the battery lifetime. The trade-off on setting the device to Sleep mode during the IDLE condition is only possible in the Class A device and not in the Class C device.
• When transmitting the non-critical application data, set the device to transmit the unconfirmed packet type, which drops off the retransmission cycle. This has a direct impact on the overall power consumption and improves the battery lifetime. The trade-off on transmitting unconfirmed packets leads to data loss in case of heavy gateway traffic or non-reachable gateway conditions.
• The data rate to receive the downlink in RX1 follows the TX data rate. The maximum value of the TX data rate (MAC_DEF_TX_CURRENT_DATARATE_EU) reduces the uplink transmit time followed by the lesser reception time in the RX1 reception window slot in the WLR089 device.
• Enable the Adaptive Data Rate (ADR) feature on the WLR089 device through which the network server controls the data rate of the WLR089 device. By enabling ADR, the network is optimized to use the fastest data rate possible without loss of connection with the network server.