Power usage using advertisements vs a connected service

[GlennEngel]

Hi, I have an application where I am recording button presses using a beacon-like implementation. The button presses represent start/finish events for a race and are communicated to a tablet bluetooth app.

I can communicate the button presses with a beacon advertisement payload or I can send them with a connected service. On the tablet side, it needs to capture all unique events so it must be listening all the time.

Does anyone know the relative power a tablet needs to operate in a continuous advertisement scan mode vs connected service? I can adjust my ble button transmitter for either case easily but I want to minimize the power drain on the tablet side.

Thanks in advance for any insights.

[Anders Strand]

Hey.

When in a connection, the tablet can turn the radio on at one exact time, receive a packet and then turn off the radio. When scanning continuously, it can never turn off the radio.

Since the radio is a major power drain, the connection based solution will use the least amount of power.

However, the best solution might change based on other variables, such as:

• How many beacons do you expect to communicate with at a given time?
• How low latency do you need between a button press and the tablet receiving it?
• Will the beacons be in range of the tablet at all times? If not, how many % of the time are they in range?