I have been learning about MCUs, Zephyr and Zigbee in order to complete a simple project to build an occupancy sensor using a simple digital hall switch that is battery powered and integrates with my Home Assistant via Zigbee. This small project is a way for me to learn more about embedded development.
Current equipment
- nRF54l15 DK
- Power Profiler Kit 2
- Seed Xiao nrf54l15
- drv5032 hall sensor (wrote a driver for this)
I have been working with the nRF54 DK up to this point and have managed to get the power usage down to around 20 µA.
At this point I moved to getting the code working on the Seeed Xiao nRF54l with the goal of achieving a similar power usage to the DK. I have struggled with this and I'm seeing things I don't understand.
For example the voltage supplied to the Xiao seems to make a big difference to how much power is drawn. Setting the PPK2 to supply ~3v increases the consumption of the Xiao compared to ~3.4v where it uses roughly the same as the DK.
- Am I doing something wrong with the way I am measuring the power draw on the Xiao or using the PPK?
- Are there alternatives to the Xiao e.g. I've seen WROOM module used in other projects I have learnt from?
Eventuially I want to create a PCB to hold the Xiao (or an alternative), battery cradle for a CR2450 or similar and the digital hall sensor.
This is a journey for me to learn new skill and produce something useful that I can be proud of.
I will be cross posting this to the Seeed forum.
Regards