I've been trying to solve some really unusual rapid battery rundown on iOS devices for quite sometime, I just happened to realize that the battery life is phenomenal when I am away from my house and abysmal when I return. When I am at home and my iOS devices (multiple models, has occurred for multiple iOS versions) are on my WiFi network they burn through ~10%/hour with the device sitting completely unused. If I disconnect from WiFi (but leaving the radio on) then the battery may not drop 1% per hour. It essentially seems that the battery consumption is over 20X when connected to the Mikrotik APs.

I have been testing various options on my Mikrotik APs, settings I have attempted to change with no observed change in results:

• Increasing group rekey from 5-minutes to 1 hour to 8 hours
  Changing multicast helper from enabled to default to disabled
  Disabling STP on AP bridges
  Disable keep alive frames
  Downgraded from routerOS stable (6.49) to long term channel (6.48.5)

So far nothing improves, I have a different TP-Link AP arriving Monday to test to see if using that device the problem truly goes away. Before I sell my wAP ac's at a loss, is there something else that I am missing or is the AP just so badly implemented that mobile device radios can't ever sleep? At this rate it is cheaper to toss the three APs in the trash than to pay for batteries that get their cycles prematurely used up due to these APs.

Have you increased the dhcp lease time?

Interested in the TP-link test.

The mods done are not very related, even DHCP is not.

We know that "dtim" cannot be altered in ROS (fixed at 100ms)

But nevertheless, Apple itself is very chatty. (Bonjour etc)

- in registration table you should see the "Last Activity(s)" counter for that connection continously ramp up till 20 sec, if the device is idle
- some devices drop the transmitpower during this time, this might trigger the "Access list" "Signal Strength Range" action if set. ("Allow signal out of Range" > 20 sec will help)
- If the inactivity timer is not ramping up , check what traffic is sent or received with Torch or Packet Sniffer (as there is activity)
- multicast helper to "default" might be better. (Sending all Multicasts at DTIM intervals.)
- what is generating broadcasts/multicasts on your network? I have had severe multicast (Bonjour) storms on my wifi networks (caused by an iPhone looking for a printer, with bridged AP's in the network. Since then all my SSID are separated via 'horizon' settings in the bridges, blocking multicasts from spreading.)

Have you increased the dhcp lease time?

In this environment my lease time has always been 14-days since I setup my HEx years ago.

Interested in the TP-link test.

The mods done are not very related, even DHCP is not.

We know that "dtim" cannot be altered in ROS (fixed at 100ms)

But nevertheless, Apple itself is very chatty. (Bonjour etc)

- in registration table you should see the "Last Activity(s)" counter for that connection continously ramp up till 20 sec, if the device is idle
- some devices drop the transmitpower during this time, this might trigger the "Access list" "Signal Strength Range" action if set. ("Allow signal out of Range" > 20 sec will help)
- If the inactivity timer is not ramping up , check what traffic is sent or received with Torch or Packet Sniffer (as there is activity)
- multicast helper to "default" might be better. (Sending all Multicasts at DTIM intervals.)
- what is generating broadcasts/multicasts on your network? I have had severe multicast (Bonjour) storms on my wifi networks (caused by an iPhone looking for a printer, with bridged AP's in the network. Since then all my SSID are separated via 'horizon' settings in the bridges, blocking multicasts from spreading.)

I installed a TP-Link EAP620 (it is shockingly large), created a completely new SSID, moved a few select devices (all Apple) over, and immediately saw improved battery life. But during this I found some of the changes I had made to my Mikrotik had caused a few clients to fall off the network (e.g. an HP printer) so it wasn't a controlled comparison.

So now it seems as if there is some inter-op issue between devices that is causing the issue as my "control" iOS device I left on Mikrotik also saw battery improvement. I don't know if I will ever find which devices, I decided to just move all of the devices I "don't care about" to my 2.4GHz SSID and to leave my 5GHz SSID for select devices.

I don't know if a "newer" WiFi spec allows for better isolation between devices to solve this problem or not (e.g. WiFi 6 TWT, BSS, or MU-MIMO). Perhaps it is an airwave issue, as I live in a city though the noise floor on 5GHz is -101 to -104db but there are >14 visible SSIDs and many of those use wide channels. I don't care about potential throughput, I only use 20MHz width as I care more about reliability.

So perhaps I was too quick to assume it was a Mikrotik issue, I do wonder if being able to extend DTIM intervals would help further. So back to toiling away on this, I was hoping it would just be as easy as forking over for new devices. I can say the TP-Link EAP620 wouldn't be it, as it would never pass the requirements to be mounted in any of the rooms in my house. It is comical how big it is vs the Mikrotik, or even Unify devices.

A better test would have been the TP Link EAP245.
This is a wifi5 device like the capac but peforms way better and has a reasonable form factor.
I have one in the house (and a 660HD - high and out of sight LOL) and one at the mother in-laws house all working very very well.

A better test would have been the TP Link EAP245.
This is a wifi5 device like the capac but peforms way better and has a reasonable form factor.
I have one in the house (and a 660HD - high and out of sight LOL) and one at the mother in-laws house all working very very well.

Curious what aspects of performance are way better, in my urban environment I prioritize reliability over performance which is why I run 20MHz channels. I had looked at the EAP225, but I doubt my wife would allow it to be installed in the room where I have a wAP ac now and putting it in a closet may diminish some of the gains.