Compact and low-cost radar transponders are an attractive alternative to corner reflectors (CR) for SAR interferometric (InSAR) deformation monitoring, datum connection, and geodetic data integration.Recently, such transponders have become commercially available for C-band sensors, which poses relevant questions on their characteristics in terms of radiometric, geometric, and phase stability. Especially for extended time series and for high-precision geodetic applications, the impact of secular or seasonal effects, such as variations in temperature and humidity, has yet to be proven.Here we address these challenges using a multitude of short baseline experiments with four transponders and six corner reflectors deployed at test sites in the Netherlands and Slovakia. Combined together, we analyzed 980 transponder measurements in Sentinel-1 time series to a maximum extent of 21 months.We find an average Radar Cross Section (RCS) of over 42 dBm2 within a range of up to 15 degrees of elevation misalignment, which is comparable to a triangular trihedral corner reflector with a leg length of 2.0 m. Its RCS shows temporal variations of 0.3--0.7~dBm2 (standard deviation) which is partially correlated with surface temperature changes.The precision of the InSAR phase double-differences over short baselines between a transponder and a stable reference corner reflectors is found to be 0.5-1.2 mm (one sigma). We observe a correlation with surface temperature, leading to seasonal variations of up to +/-3 mm, which should be modeled and corrected for in high precision InSAR applications. For precise SAR positioning, we observe antenna-specific constant internal electronic delays of 1.2-2.1 m in slant-range, i.e., within the range resolution of the Sentinel-1 Interferometric Wide Swath (IW) product, with a temporal variability of less than 20~cm.Comparing similar transponders from the same series, we observe distinctdifferences in performance. Our main conclusion is that these characteristics are favorable for a wide range of geodetic applications. For particular demanding applications, individual calibration of single devices is strongly recommended.