Power consumption explanation for idle state in mesh sdk

[Ceow]

Hi,

I am analyzing the power consumption of mesh nodes using your Power Profile Kit. I am running the example beaconing of the Mesh SDK 3.1.0 on a board nRF52832 with the following modification, which makes the beacon scan only once every 2 seconds instead of continuously:

/* nrf_mesh_config_bearer.h */
#define BEARER_SCAN_WINDOW_DEFAULT_MS 20

 

I can measure a consumption of 620 μA on average when the application is idle (ie outside advertising and scanning events) while I obtain 8 μA with a standard beacon.

Why is it so ? Is there some background processing or a different sleep mode in the mesh SDK that explains that consumption gap compared to the standard SDK ?

Thanks and all the best.

[Hung Bui]

I believe it's the timer running keeping the HFCLK active when inside a timeslot (mesh stack requests timeslot from the softdevice).

Please be aware that except for the Low Power Node example, all other mesh example is not power optimized. 

Could you share some more information on what you plan do to ? It's much easier to disable mesh completely, do beaconing as a standard beacon then reactive mesh again if needed. 

[Ceow]

Ok thank you !