Mobility is the essence of asset tracking.
Contrary to collecting data from static assets during long cycles, asset tracking is deployed to send near-real-time data from objects in motion all over the world. The essential element making this dynamic data collection possible is autonomous power.
There is evidence for how critical power is: There are over 16 million asset tracking devices deployed in the world as we speak11 and most of them have not and most likely will not reach their life span due to a singular reason: battery depletion.
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Battery life is not like any other spec, even though it is often presented as such. The life span of a battery is not static — it is determined by how the hardware components, firmware, and software use energy. And when a fleet of thousands of devices expends the battery life span years before the claim on the battery spec sheet, visibility goes to absolute zero and operational costs multiply by thousands.
This article is for anyone designing, building, or operating battery-powered asset tracking devices and anyone who requires a fleet with predictable, long-term costs and returns. It is for asset tracking users who have already taken battery life claims at face value — and do not want to repeat the same mistake — as well as for users who will deploy asset trackers and want to do it with precision, predictability, and for the longest possible life span.
Take battery life claims with a pinch of salt
Battery life is one of the most cited and least proven performance metrics in IoT. Every manufacturer promises years of endurance, up to ten in many cases. However, these numbers apply to minimum operational requirements and lab conditions and are derived from lab conditions.
Operational asset trackers work in environments that are the direct opposite of a lab — temperature variations, mobility, proactive and reactive data signals. On top of that, actual battery life in the real world is a combination of factors:
- Battery size
- Position update intervals
- Transmission frequency
- Power management stability
- Network coverage
- Temperature
- Data upload frequency
- Firmware
Deploying an entire fleet of thousands based on a claim taken at face value is not “trust issues” — it’s a potential million-dollar faux-pas. Contrary to good relationship advice, good asset tracking advice is: “Trust only what you measure yourself.”
Your precise measurements will help you plan not just deployment and provisioning but also the realistic life span of the devices and the complete ROI of data visibility. Without the battery life metric realistically measured, the entire asset tracking project is a house of cards.
Re-industrialize your performance metrics: Test in real-life condition
Asset tracking devices are born and tested in the lab, but they live and die out in the real world: on the road, ocean, air, and ground. Since asset tracking use cases can have such different applications and requirements, measuring the battery consumption in the real-life conditions of your use case is critical.
Asset tracking devices that ace lab tests may struggle in the unpredictable conditions of the real world. Network conditions can be unstable, temperatures can fluctuate to extremes, and different sensors may have different energy needs when they work together. These are the less visible factors that influence battery life much more than design flaws.
Test your device outside the lab to expose these corner cases and bridge the design intent with the reality of your operations. These tests will reveal any firmware shortcomings, module recovery times, and the impact of your connectivity technology.
Asset tracking is a team sport: Orchestrate hardware, firmware, software
If you have one key takeaway from this guide, it should be this:
Battery life isn’t a hardware spec; it’s a system outcome.
The intention behind stressing this is that, more often than not, battery life is treated like a static metric. In reality, 75% of the energy consumption lies in the firmware.
Great firmware is what great hardware requires, and they both absolutely need great software. And that’s your asset tracking device team:
- Firmware tells hardware how to behave economically.
- Software centralizes your device control panel and allows you to access and configure functions and intervals.
- Software is also where fine-tuning and battery life optimization starts.
Even firmware cannot compensate for software that forces unnecessary uploads.
Be a sloth — Make your device do as little as possible
You may have heard that laziness is the mother of invention. This is also true for asset tracking devices. Much like sloths who spend 20 hours sleeping and the remaining 4 moving as economically as possible, design your asset tracking device to do as little as possible — in every compartment.
Lazy efficiency requires design, so make sure your selected intervals correspond to the task at hand.
A big part of designing a lazy asset tracking device lies with the firmware. For asset tracking in particular, you’d want to set a minimum viable interval of proactive checking that doesn’t depend on the sensor detector — for example, every 12 hours. At this point, the firmware will tell the device to return to sleep after the data packet is sent.
The device doesn’t need to bring its full self to work for every data packet:
- Waking every sensor to send GNSS data consumes unnecessary energy.
- If only the accelerometer is needed, the microcontroller can stay asleep.
Selective wake design is the hallmark of mature firmware. It transforms a naïve “always on” system into one with a hierarchy of awareness — sensors keeping watch, processors sleeping deeply, radios waking only for meaningful work.
Power Saving Mode: The smart-lazy “off”
Power Saving Mode (PSM) is many maturity levels above the “On/Off” strategy. It puts the module into deep sleep immediately after sending the data packet without deregistering it from the network. This means the next transmission skips the costly re-registration step.
In practice, devices using well-tuned PSM can save up to a third of their total energy budget over the long run.
PSM comes with network requirements:
- The network must support passive modes and release assist indicators.
- The network timer needs to be adjusted in the firmware to align with expectations.
Be mindful — PSM is highly optimized compared to the simpler “on/off” mode. Scrutinize whether it truly serves your use case and whether the return is worth the investment.
The smoking of battery life: Manage in-rush current
Most power drains are not obvious, but in-rush currents are the most silent ones. Inrush current is the spike of current going into capacitors when a switch is turned on.
This is the equivalent of smoking for battery life — it causes the premature end of life.
As batteries age, internal resistance increases. When components turn on, voltage can drop below a critical threshold, causing the device to reset. Data is lost, troubleshooting is needed, and battery sickness begins.
Managing in-rush currents lies in the design:
- Check for in-rush currents early
- Adjust power circuitry accordingly
- Use larger capacitors, better regulators, or sequenced power-on logic
Debate the battery size — but not too much
Battery choice is the first violin in the concert of hardware, firmware, and software. Every decision is grounded in it.
A small battery simply cannot store the energy of a larger one. However, battery size determines device size — and the tendency is often “the smaller, the better.”
Instead of asking “How big is the battery?”, ask:
What does the device need to accomplish?
This question encapsulates technical requirements such as:
- Communication frequency
- Network type
- Antenna size
These answers determine PCB size, antenna design, radio efficiency — and ultimately battery size and device dimensions.
Beyond the size: Pick the right battery
Capacity, chemistry, temperature tolerance, discharge behavior, and form factor all play interconnected roles.
Size and capacity
A larger battery generally provides longer lifetime, but the size should be tightly tailored to your use case. Balance enclosure space, weight limits, mounting requirements, and desired lifetime.
Peak currents
Cellular devices — especially 2G and LTE — require higher bursts of energy. If the battery cannot handle peak currents, results range from resets to brownouts.
Temperature performance
Asset trackers often operate outdoors and across climates.
- High temperatures accelerate chemical aging.
- Cold reduces voltage output.
Lithium iron disulfide handles low temperatures well, while lithium-polymer degrades faster in heat.
Primary or rechargeable?
Primary batteries are simple and reliable for multi-year lifetimes but must be replaced once empty. Rechargeables enable solar or motion harvesting but introduce cycle limits and complexity.
Primary lithium cells can hold capacity for years, while rechargeable lithium-polymer packs lose charge monthly — even when idle.
Lithium is not a no-brainer
Airlines often restrict lithium shipments. If trackers may travel by air, another chemistry may be preferable.
Solar-powered ≠ infinitely powered
Solar devices require rechargeable storage, which wears out over cycles and reacts to temperature swings. Sunlight angles can also produce high open-circuit voltage with little usable power.
Choose the right connectivity — or the right combination
Connectivity is full of trade-offs determined by your use case.
Short-range technologies such as SigmaFox and LoRaWAN are cost-effective and license-free but may not provide the bandwidth asset tracking requires.
Cellular connectivity is the clear winner, offering:
- Acknowledged uploads
- Over-the-air updates
- Global roaming
Many energy-hungry functions can be moved from the device to the cloud, where there are no energy constraints.
Cloud-based GNSS
Instead of computing GPS fixes on-device — a high-current process — some trackers perform a brief scan, upload raw satellite signals, and calculate position in the cloud.
This offloads heavy processing and delivers consistent, predictable energy consumption.
Don’t sleep on the modem — let the modem sleep
The modem can make or break energy-efficient connectivity.
A modem constantly searching for signal or retrying failed attachments burns charge silently. Testing modem behavior in real deployment environments is essential.
Ask:
- What happens when coverage disappears?
- How quickly does it reconnect?
- Does it stop scanning when the network is down?
Understanding these behaviors turns modems into predictable, controllable components.
Not all SIMs are the same
When we talk about SIMs, we refer to connectivity providers.
Steered connectivity & roaming
Many providers hardcode network priority lists based on commercial agreements rather than signal strength. When priority networks are weak, devices loop through connection attempts, wasting power.
Roaming can double energy consumption due to repeated registrations and dropped packets.
Non-steered, global connectivity
Some providers offer non-steered connectivity, allowing devices to connect to the strongest available network and avoid energy-draining scans.
SIM form factor
The chip in SIM cards consumes energy at different rates depending on form.
SoftSIM — embedded in firmware — is the most energy-efficient option.
Conclusion
If this all sounds like a lot to think about, that’s because it is. But it’s also what makes the difference between predictable peak performance and unpredictable issues with a short life.
Battery life isn’t magic nor luck — it’s the cumulative result of hundreds of small, connected decisions across hardware, firmware, and software.
The good news is that this complexity is a one-time investment. Once you understand how sleep cycles depend on firmware, how modems behave on the network, how batteries react to temperature, and what role connectivity plays, it becomes second nature.
There are IoT partners whose job is to deliver energy-optimal asset trackers. Devices that combine optimized firmware, cloud-assisted intelligence, and connectivity that works with — not against — your power budget embody the principles in this playbook.
Great asset tracking isn’t about chasing the longest battery life. It’s about receiving real-world data — reliably, predictably, and confidently — so you can focus on what really matters: managing your operations.
About Onomondo
Onomondo is a global IoT connectivity provider creating better connectivity for everything. By integrating 680+ networks into a unified core infrastructure, the company offers a simple, reliable, and flexible solution for IoT projects worldwide.
Its smart cellular network enables businesses to develop simpler, better-performing devices, saving battery in remote locations or reducing data while roaming across borders. The platform improves efficiency with intuitive troubleshooting tools and connectivity integrations, helping streamline the process of developing, deploying, and operating IoT solutions.
About Digital Matter
Digital Matter is a global leader in IoT hardware solutions, delivering deploy-once devices and flexible device management software that enable reliable, long-term asset tracking, sensor monitoring, and telematics applications.
Engineered to outperform and driven by continuous innovation, its low-power devices are trusted by a global network of reselling partners to connect and protect the assets that matter, backed by expert technical guidance and a shared commitment to long-term success.out the latest product updates here.
