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MultiNav Pro+ BLE - TX power levels, are all steps actually usable at range?

Alexandre GirardJuly 25, 2026
Hey all, been working with the BLE module for a few weeks now on a remote sensor network project and I have a question about the TX power configuration. I know the module is rated for 50km but I'm curious how the intermediate power steps actually behave in practice. Like, if I dial down from max TX to something like -6dBm or -12dBm, does the link quality degrade gracefully or does it kind of fall off a cliff past a certain point? Trying to find a power budget sweet spot because the nodes are running on harvested energy and I can't just leave them pegged at max TX all the time.
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Replies

AdamJuly 25, 2026
@Alexandre Girard good question — and honestly a really smart way to approach it for a harvested energy setup.
 
From what I've seen, the degradation is generally graceful rather than cliff-like, at least down to around -6dBm or -8dBm at moderate distances. The STM32WB07's receiver sensitivity is doing a lot of the heavy lifting on the link budget, so you have more headroom to play with on the TX side than you might expect. Where things tend to get ugly is when you're already pushing distance *and* you start stacking environmental factors (multipath, humidity, obstructions) on top of a reduced TX level — that's where the margin disappears faster than the math suggests.
 
For a harvested energy node at short-to-mid range, I'd honestly start your testing around -4dBm to -6dBm and measure actual RSSI variance over a few days rather than just a point-in-time test. The firmware repo has the TX power configuration exposed — worth pulling that and doing a sweep at your actual deployment distance to find where your PER starts climbing before you commit to a power budget number.
 
What's the rough link distance you're working with on these nodes? That'll change the answer a bit.
DonaldJuly 25, 2026
From what I've seen in my own testing the dropoff is actually pretty gradual down to around -6dBm, but once you push past -12dBm you start noticing it gets a lot more sensitive to environmental noise and multipath - not a cliff exactly but the margin shrinks fast. If your nodes are relatively static I'd honestly just run some RSSI logs at each step over a day or two in your actual deployment environment, because the 50km rating is very much a best-case open-field number and your real sweet spot will depend a lot on what's between the nodes.
Michael HawkinsJuly 25, 2026
Donald's point about static nodes is key - if you've got any movement or seasonal vegetation changes between nodes you'll want more headroom than you think. I've found -6dBm to be a pretty solid middle ground for power savings without giving up too much link margin, but tbh the RSSI logging approach is the only way to really know for your specific layout.

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