Designers of low-power RF portable products must address two important criteria that deeply affect their choices for a wireless technology: battery life and range. The good news is that there is a multitude of standard and proprietary 2.4-GHz wireless technologies for designers to choose from. The bad news is that evaluating how each meets the battery life and range requirements for an application can be extremely challenging. Most designers are forced to sift through misleading marketing and datasheet specifications, including transmit current, receive current, sleep current, and range. This article explains why these specifications are misleading and how they can lead designers to choose non-optimal approaches. It will show how to accurately evaluate power consumption and range, how to use link budgets, and how to work with current profiles to maximize sleep time, minimize retries, and avoid interference. To read more, click the download link below or visit RF Design Line.
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