The GNSS Cold Start Penalty: Why Satellite Acquisition Dominates IoT Power Budgets

GNSS acquisition mode selection—cold vs. hot start—can create a 20× difference in power consumption per fix, with cold starts potentially consuming 70% of an IoT tracker's battery budget. Modern firmware strategies like Assisted GNSS (pre-loading ephemeris data) and persistent cache storage can reduce TTFF from 60+ seconds to under 10 seconds, delivering 2.7× real-world battery life improvements on identical hardware.