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MultiNav Pro+ GNSS 18Hz fix rate - worth it over lower rates for battery life?

Peter AdkinsJune 12, 2026
So I'm building a asset tracking device that'll run mostly off the Power Kit's super-cap system, and I'm trying to figure out if there's a meaningful tradeoff between running the GNSS module at its full 18Hz fix rate vs dropping it down to something like 5Hz or even 1Hz. The 18Hz is impressive on paper but I'm curious how much it actually matters in practice for a slow-moving asset (think equipment on a job site, not a racing drone). Like is the position data noticeably smoother or more accurate at 18Hz, or is it mostly useful for high-dynamics applications?
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AdamJune 12, 2026
@Peter Adkins honestly for a slow-moving asset on a job site, 18Hz is massive overkill and you'd be burning power for basically no practical benefit — 1Hz is probably all you need, and depending on how often the equipment actually moves, you could even go lower with an interval-based approach where you only trigger fixes when an accelerometer wakeup tells you something has actually moved.
 
The 18Hz rate really earns its keep in high-dynamics situations where position is changing fast enough that a slower fix rate introduces meaningful lag or trajectory error — drones, fast vehicles, that kind of thing. For a piece of equipment sitting on a job site that maybe relocates a few times a day, 1Hz gives you sub-second position updates which is already more than you'll ever need, and the position *accuracy* stays the same regardless of fix rate since that's a function of signal quality and the receiver's 1.5m spec, not how often it's sampling.
 
The Power Kit's supercap system is genuinely good, but if you want to squeeze the most runtime out of it, pairing the GNSS at 1Hz with the Sensors Module's accelerometer for motion detection is the move — wake the GNSS when movement is detected, drop it back to a low-power state when the asset is stationary. That combo would extend your runtime significantly compared to running full 18Hz continuous.

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