Anyone has concerns about the high power consumption of Pepwave Surf SOHO? The datasheet lists 22-26W. I wonder if that’s accurate, and what could be the reason behind the increased draw. A typical small router is about 10-15W, so this is about twice as high. This may seem insignificant, but it does become significant during extended power outages. If you power the router through a UPS battery, this means that during an outage the runtime will be cut in half, compared to more efficient models. For example, 2.5 hours instead of 5 (on a small UPS), or 5 hours instead of 10 (larger UPS).
Those are the max ratings (with and without usb modem attached). To get that level of power usage, the SOHO would be flat out with 25 clients connected via wired and wireless LAN (both 2.4 and 5Ghz) and the router pushing 120Mbps through its wired and wireless WANs. All quite unlikely. typical usage will be much lower with power consumption aligned.
For comparison the BR1 datasheet says a max of 16w, typical of 11w min 8w, i frequently see it idle at 6w.
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Great answer, thanks! So, taking the 16max/11avg/8min figures for the BR1, by the same logic the SOHO should be around 26max/19avg/13min, or something like that.
This makes me think about the BR1 line as an alternative to SOHO. I might end up getting one of those low-consumption models, since the UPS runtime is a factor for me. At 6W idle, the BR1 could stay alive close to 24 hours on a decent 1500VA UPS. That’s very good for low usage scenarios.
@MartinLangmaid:
I’ve also looked at Surf On-the-Go and the power is listed as 5W max! That’s really low, and assuming idle will be even lower. Could you please confirm that it really never exceeds 5W even with the USB modem inserted, and WiFi clients connected, is that correct?
Can’t confirm as I never use the Surf On-The-Go. Its much more limited than a MAX model with their integrated cellular modules.
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