Over the last two decades, Wi-Fi has transformed connectivity with more than 15 billion installed devices in the world. Such a broad and pervasive installed base, along with its throughput capabilities and native IP capabilities, makes Wi-Fi an attractive protocol for IoT wireless applications. However, a key limitation of most Wi-Fi based IoT systems is high power consumption. As Wi-Fi was primarily designed to optimize bandwidth, using traditional Wi-Fi in power constrained battery powered applications can be a significant challenge.

This whitepaper discusses the factors contributing to Wi-Fi power consumption, different power saving modes, as well as design and hardware considerations for optimizing power consumption and extending battery life in IoT devices.