Lower scanning power for BLE

[tyler]

I am developing an application using Nordic SDK 8.1 for BLE that requires a low power consumption. To lower the power of the slave BLE device I was able to lower the advertising power using:

sd_ble_gap_tx_power_set(-30);

I am cursious how I can do the same thing for the master device now (lower the power consumption while scanning)? I tried the same code on the master device, but it didn't seem to affect the range that the 2 devices were able to find each other at.

[run_ar]

First of all I would recommend using the latest supported Softdevice and SDK for nRF51822.

That said, Setting tx power doesn't lower the power while scanning. If you wan't lower power while scanning you have to use a shorter scan window, but notice that you might have to scan for a longer time (i.e. additional scan periods) so you might not save power.

[tyler]

Will lowering the tx power while advertising on the slave lower the power consumption for the slave device? If not what can be done to lower power while advertising?

[run_ar]

Yes, it will lower the power consumption (but also the range). You can also change the advertisement interval. But as long as you are sleeping in between advertisement there is not much you can do to lower the consumption.