Power & Sleep Settings

Power configuration decides whether a node is dependable or a liability. The wrong sleep settings silently break relaying, drop messages, and still manage to flatten a battery.

The rule that matters most

A node that is asleep cannot hear or relay anything.

So the question is never "how do I save power?" but "is this node supposed to be relaying?"

• If the node contributes to mesh coverage (rooftop, silo, tower, solar infrastructure, anything other people route through): do not sleep it. Get its runtime from efficient hardware and an honestly sized panel and battery, not from sleep.
• If the node is personal (a tracker in a pack, a spare in a drawer, a node you only use on hikes): sleep freely. Nobody is depending on it.

This is why a solar node and a sleeping node are usually different things. A solar infrastructure node stays awake year-round; solar is how you power it, not a reason to switch it off.

Power profiles

Always-on infrastructure

Rooftop, silo, tower. Mains power or a properly sized solar system.

• Role: CLIENT (or ROUTER only if it is a genuine high site)
• Power saving: off
• Bluetooth: off after deployment
• WiFi: off unless the node is your MQTT gateway
• Position: fixed (see below)

Battery handheld

• Role: CLIENT
• Power saving: on, if you want longer runtime between charges
• Bluetooth: on, you need it for the phone app
• Position: on, with Smart Position

Personal tracker

A node whose job is to report where it is, not to carry the mesh.

• Role: CLIENT or CLIENT_MUTE in dense areas
• Power saving: on
• Position: Smart Position, longer intervals
• Sleep: fine to use aggressively

The actual settings

In the Meshtastic app these live under Settings → Radio configuration → Power. Names vary slightly by app version and firmware.

Setting	Infrastructure	Handheld / tracker	What it does
Power saving (is_power_saving)	Off	On	Puts the radio into low-power states between activity. An asleep node does not relay.
Bluetooth enabled	Off after setup	On	The single biggest avoidable drain on most boards, and it blocks deeper sleep states.
WiFi enabled	Off (unless MQTT gateway)	Off	WiFi costs far more power than LoRa. Never run it on a battery-only node.
Screen timeout (screen_on_secs)	10 s or display off	10 to 60 s	OLED backlights are a real load on small batteries.
min_wake_secs	Default	Default	How long the node stays awake after waking. Leave alone unless you are debugging.
sds_secs (super deep sleep)	Disabled	Optional	Full shutdown for long periods. Never on a relaying node.
Node info interval	10800 s (3 h)	10800 s	Identity broadcasts. Shorter intervals just burn airtime.
Position interval	1800 s or longer	Smart Position	See Position Settings.
Telemetry intervals	1800 s or longer	Default	Device and environment metrics. Long intervals are plenty.

Sizing a solar node

Northwest Indiana is the hard case for solar: December gives roughly 1.5 to 2 peak sun hours a day, and lake-effect cloud can run for the better part of a week. Size for the worst week of the year, not the average.

A practical rule for an always-on Meshtastic node:

• Draw: budget 20 to 40 mA average for an always-listening node (nRF52-based boards such as the RAK4631 sit at the low end; ESP32 boards with an OLED sit at the high end). That is roughly 0.5 to 1 Ah per day.
• Battery: aim for 5 to 7 days of autonomy. That means about 4000 to 7000 mAh of usable lithium capacity for an efficient node, which is where the four-18650 packs in nodes like the SenseCAP P1-Pro land.
• Panel: target 10 to 20 W for a single node. That looks oversized in July and is exactly right in January. Undersizing the panel is the most common reason a node dies in week two of a cloudy stretch.
• Cold: lithium cells lose usable capacity below freezing, and most charge controllers should not charge a lithium pack below 0 °C. Prefer hardware with low-temperature charge protection, and derate your winter expectations accordingly.

Then verify instead of hoping: leave the node running on the bench for two full days and watch its battery telemetry trend before you put it somewhere that needs a ladder.

Enclosures and weather

The node that fails in February usually failed because of water, not radio.

• Use a real IP65 or IP67 enclosure. A project box with a gasket is fine; a box with a snap lid is not.
• Condensation is the actual enemy. A sealed box in Indiana heats in the sun and cools at night, and moist air that got in during assembly ends up as water on the board. Add a silica gel desiccant pack, or fit a vent plug (a breathable membrane) so the box can equalize pressure without taking on liquid water.
• Bring cables in through proper cable glands, sized to the cable. Never through an unsealed drilled hole.
• Enter from the bottom or side, never the top, and leave a drip loop so water runs away from the entry.
• Tape outdoor coax connectors: a wrap of self-amalgamating (self-fusing) tape over the connector, then electrical tape over that as a UV layer. Water in coax will quietly ruin your SWR.
• Use UV-rated cable ties and glands. Standard nylon ties turn brittle and snap after a couple of Indiana summers.
• Mount the panel steeply enough to shed snow (a winter-friendly tilt is much closer to vertical than the summer-optimal angle) and keep it clear of the enclosure's shadow.
• Lightning: for anything on a mast or rooftop, fit a coax lightning arrestor at the entry point and bond it to a ground. This protects the building more than the node, and it is the cheapest insurance you will buy.

The Hardware page lists enclosures, glands, desiccant, arrestors, panels, and charge controllers we use.

Before you deploy

• Run the node 48 hours on the bench on its real battery, in its real enclosure, and check the battery trend.
• Set a primary admin key so you can recover the node remotely instead of climbing (see SenseCAP Solar Node setup).
• Confirm it is relaying, not just alive: check that other nodes see it, not only that it appears on the map.
• Write down what you installed and where. Future you, on a ladder in the sleet, will be grateful.