Zigbee Sleeping Configuration for Battery-Based Remote Implementation on nRF52840

RE: Zigbee Sleeping Configuration for Battery-Based Remote Implementation on nRF52840

Edvin — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 13:13:34 GMT

Hello,

Maria is currently out of office.

Did you try to disable logging?

I am seeing around 55µA using the attached light_switch sample from v2.9.0. I did some modiifications in prj.conf, as disabling logging (and setting the channel to a fixed channel, that I also do in the network coordinator sample, to reduce connection time).

Additionally, I skipped the button check, and enabled low power mode in main.c. Have a look, and see what current consumption you are seeing.

devzone.nordicsemi.com/.../light_5F00_switch_5F00_lpn.zip

Best regards,

Edvin

RE: Zigbee Sleeping Configuration for Battery-Based Remote Implementation on nRF52840

Thota_Suresh — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 13:01:17 GMT

Hi Maria Gilje

Thanks for your suggestions.

I have now updated the SDK to version 2.9.0.

Using the power-off API on a standalone device, I was able to reach ~5 µA. However, for the Zigbee remote-control use case this is not suitable, because on every wake-up cycle the ZED needs to reconnect and forward the packet.

I also tested the suggested Zigbee Light Switch sample with sleepy mode enabled. In this SED configuration I am able to achieve around ~500 µA (power profiler image attached). With this value, the battery life is still not sufficient for the remote-control application.

Could you please confirm whether ~500 µA is the expected baseline for the default ZED/SED example, or should we expect significantly lower consumption?

Additionally, I am enabling Bluetooth for onboarding, then disabling it before Zigbee starts. This BLE onboarding phase consumes around ~8 mA, but after Zigbee joins successfully the idle current stabilizes at ~500 µA.

For reference, I am using the following configuration:

CONFIG_SERIAL=y
CONFIG_RAM_POWER_DOWN_LIBRARY=y

And the Zigbee initialization code:

zb_set_ed_timeout(ED_AGING_TIMEOUT_64MIN);
zb_set_keepalive_timeout(ZB_MILLISECONDS_TO_BEACON_INTERVAL(3000));
zb_set_rx_on_when_idle(ZB_FALSE);

zigbee_configure_sleepy_behavior(true);

if (IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_RAM_POWER_DOWN_LIBRARY)) {
    power_down_unused_ram();
}

zigbee_enable();
zb_secur_ic_set(ZB_IC_TYPE_128, s_test_install_code);

Please let me know if additional configuration is required to reach the lower sleep current mentioned in the documentation, or if further optimizations are recommended.

Thanks,
Suresh

RE: Zigbee Sleeping Configuration for Battery-Based Remote Implementation on nRF52840

Maria Gilje — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 12:44:34 GMT

Hi Suresh,

The Zigbee Light switch sample can run with SED behaviour if you boot the device while pressing button 3. Are you using the sample in the SED mode? If not, please see the relevant sample documentation here.

If you want the application to configure the SED behaviour by default you can modify the sample to call the zigbee_configure_sleepy_behavior(true) function regardless of the state of button 3.

For general information on SED behaviour and tips for saving more power, please see the Sleepy End Device behavior documentation. Since the light bulb sample has the SED behaviour enabled when booting while button 3 is pressed, further power saving steps can be taken to reduce the sleep current to ~1.8 uA. See the Power saving during sleep section to see those steps.

Also refer to the sleep current table in the nRF52840 product specification for expected values for different sleep modes.

Best regards,

Maria