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Comment by jbmorgado | Hacker News Reader

Yes, that's missing from my original post, but I meant about the same amount of data as with Sigfox but for WiFi.

So, max will be about some 10K per day.

ESP8266 is a popular low-power WiFi chip, you can use it with a separate micro-controller but for many applications you don't need one. "ESP8266 consumes less than 12uA in sleep mode and less than 1.0mW (DTIM=3) or less than 0.5mW (DTIM=10) to stay connected to the access point." [0] Elsewhere it says it can wake-up and transmit within 2ms but I'd take that with a grain of salt.

I'm having trouble finding the same details about the MKRFOX1200 but for the transmitter "Low current consumption: 32.7mA during telegram transmit [...] Typical OFF mode current: 5nA." [1] The processor part is a SAMD21.

My guess is it's possible to get comparable idle/sleep power draw regardless of transmission method but WiFi will require more power to establish a connection and transmit the first byte.

[0] https://cdn-shop.adafruit.com/datasheets/ESP8266_Specificati...

[1] http://www.atmel.com/Images/Atmel-9372-Smart-RF-ATA8520_Data...

I see, thank you for the thorough explanation. Also because my first guess would be to turn on an off the antena whenever I needed data, but after what you described I see that's not as straightforward and depending on the number of updates it may actually be better to leave it on for longer periods of time.

I'm really ignorant about radio and even electricity so don't let my googling and wild-ass guesses scare you off. There are many helpful "maker" fora populated by people who can provide educated advice.

Sigfox, Wifi, or else, my recommendation is the same : when you have nothing to say, do nothing :)

In most "connected" devices, you don't need to keep an established connection which will drain the battery fast.

This is why idle consumption is key, as it will often be the state of the solution 99.x% of the time

Simply turn the communication module on when you need it.

Then the difference between solutions consumption-wise will be on time needed to establish connection if any, time & power to send your data.

See other comment for a few suggested Wifi components, to my knowledge Wifi won't match the low power consumption at least:. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14141026

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