We're upgrading to the MSoM from the BSoM in our product and are seeing significantly higher power usage with the MSoM.
The BSoM consumed about 12mA on average without sleep and while connected over cellular. The MSoM on the other hand is consuming about 100mA on average so 10x more. This isn't ideal for our battery-powered device.
I've tried to experiment with turning off WiFi but even that doesn't seem to make a difference. I've also noticed that when I turn off Wifi, I can no longer do BLE scans. Is Wifi required for BLE to work on the MSoM?
Are these readings in line with what others have observed?
BLE and Wi-Fi share a radio, so turning off Wi-Fi also will turn off BLE.
100 mA seems high if idle, but normal if transmitting by cellular, Wi-Fi or BLE. Usually it's around 50 mA to 65 mA when idle. This is significantly higher than the B404 but is unavoidable because the RTL8722 just uses significantly more power than the nRF52840. The RTL872x is similar in power consumption to the STM32F205 in Gen 2 devices.
Thank you @rickkas7 for confirming the wifi and BLE radio. It seems when idle it's about 80mA and spikes to 150 mA at times probably when communicating.
Thanks also for confirming the higher power consumption of the Realtek part. Can this be solved by using sleep modes? Which modes are available for the RTL872x while still keeping us connected over cellular?
Unfortunately wake on network is not available on the M-SoM for cellular or Wi-Fi.
You can leave the cellular radio on which will speed up reconnection a bit, but you would still need to reconnect to the cloud (blinking cyan) and you can't receive data or wake while sleeping on the M-SoM.