Thingy91 LTE BLE Gateway Power Profile

RE: Thingy91 LTE BLE Gateway Power Profile

Sigurd — Thu, 02 Mar 2023 14:31:39 GMT

[quote user="mjaszczykowski"]For newer SDKs, it does not work at all.[/quote]

You need to use the HCI low power UART to get low power. https://github.com/nrfconnect/sdk-nrf/tree/main/samples/bluetooth/hci_lpuart

This case here is 3 years old, if you are having issues with this, please create a new post: https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/support/add

RE: Thingy91 LTE BLE Gateway Power Profile

mjaszczykowski — Thu, 02 Mar 2023 12:48:49 GMT

Dear Guys,

Is there any update on this place?

When using Connect SDK 1.9.1 and thingy91, I am measuring around 0.8 mA.
For newer SDKs, it does not work at all.

Is there an option to turn off the nRF52 side when not needed?

RE: Thingy91 LTE BLE Gateway Power Profile

Sigurd — Thu, 16 Jul 2020 09:20:01 GMT

[quote userid="15146" url="~/f/nordic-q-a/57737/thingy91-lte-ble-gateway-power-profile/259602"]Next step after that, there will be a PR for adding low power uart driver to NCS.[/quote]

This PR has been added. You can follow it here: https://github.com/nrfconnect/sdk-nrf/pull/2591

RE: Thingy91 LTE BLE Gateway Power Profile

Sigurd — Mon, 13 Jul 2020 05:56:35 GMT

Hi,

[quote user="CRSharff"]any update on low power UART?[/quote]

There is an ongoing PR for asynchronous UART / Unifying H4 UART transport for host and controller in upstream zephyr. You can follow it here: https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/pull/26692

Next step after that, there will be a PR for adding low power uart driver to NCS.

RE: Thingy91 LTE BLE Gateway Power Profile

Cody — Fri, 10 Jul 2020 18:52:56 GMT

Hey Sigurd,

Its been a few more weeks, any update on low power UART?

Thanks,
Cody

RE: Thingy91 LTE BLE Gateway Power Profile

Sigurd — Fri, 19 Jun 2020 12:46:35 GMT

[quote userid="82240" url="~/f/nordic-q-a/57737/thingy91-lte-ble-gateway-power-profile/254330"]Just checking back on the status of low-power HCI UARTE since its been a couple weeks.[/quote]

It's still work in progress. But you can have a peek look at the ongoing prototype implementation. See this and this link. This PR from upstream zephyr is required.

RE: Thingy91 LTE BLE Gateway Power Profile

Cody — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 18:58:23 GMT

Hey Sigurd,

Just checking back on the status of low-power HCI UARTE since its been a couple weeks.

Thanks,
Cody

RE: Thingy91 LTE BLE Gateway Power Profile

Cody — Tue, 26 May 2020 17:36:25 GMT

Sigurd,

Thank you for the update, I will be looking forward to the prototype and closely keeping an eye on the progress.

As for my current setup, according to Stian, the power consumption of HCI UART on the nRF52840 is 0.8 mA with no DCDC and 0.35 mA with DCDC enabled. The power consumption that I am seeing is nearly identical to the power consumption without DCDC even though the configuration for the HCI UART firmware in Zephyr for the nRF52840 enables and turns on the DCDC. This is verifiable from looking at the .config generated after building the project (CONFIG_BOARD_ENABLE_DCDC=y). Can you think of any reasons why my power consumption is 0.8mA instead of 0.35mA?

Thanks,
Cody

RE: Thingy91 LTE BLE Gateway Power Profile

Sigurd — Mon, 25 May 2020 14:19:58 GMT

[quote user="CRSharff"]I guess my question is, because I don't need the the HCI UART controller to be active at all times, in fact it is rarely utilized, can the nRF52840 HCI UART firmware put the chip into a deep sleep mode or go into a low power state when the nRF9160 is not in need of bluetooth functionality?[/quote]

It should be possible, but the functionality here is not implemented.

Note that we are currently working on a solution for a low-power HCI UARTE. It should solve the issues you are seeing with the power consumption. I don’t have a pull-request to point to right now, but if you check back here in 1-2 weeks the prototype implementation might be ready.

RE: Thingy91 LTE BLE Gateway Power Profile

Cody — Wed, 20 May 2020 17:22:06 GMT

Hey Sigurd,

I am finally coming back to doing some power profiling on the Thingy91. I am using SB3/4 so that I can separate out the power domains and determine current draw from both the nRF52840 and the nRF9160. If I disable serial, logging and turn off both UARTE peripherals utilizing the config you posted above, it does appear that the power usage significantly drops.

Unfortunately, because I am utilizing the nRF52840 as a HCI UART device, I am going to need to enable and utilize at least one of the UARTE peripherals for HCI UART. According to a separate DevZone ticket, it appears that the current draw I am seeing is what is expected with the UARTE peripheral enabled (https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/26030/how-to-reach-nrf52840-uarte-current-supply-specification/). According to the Nordic employee, Stian, on the ticket he states, "First of all, 0.8 mA (on nRF52840, no DCDC. 0.35 mA with DCDC enabled @3V) is the expected run current for the UARTE in RX or TX mode since HF clock is needed and the DMA bus is active."

I guess my question is, because I don't need the the HCI UART controller to be active at all times, in fact it is rarely utilized, can the nRF52840 HCI UART firmware put the chip into a deep sleep mode or go into a low power state when the nRF9160 is not in need of bluetooth functionality?

RE: Thingy91 LTE BLE Gateway Power Profile

Sigurd — Wed, 04 Mar 2020 16:40:01 GMT

[quote user="CRSharff"]I have commented out the entire main.c file and replaced the main function with[/quote]

Is this on the nRF9160 or the nRF52840 ?

Try setting these to configs to n:

CONFIG_SERIAL=n

CONFIG_UART_0_NRF_UARTE=n
CONFIG_UART_1_NRF_UARTE=n

CONFIG_CONSOLE=n

CONFIG_LOG=n

RE: Thingy91 LTE BLE Gateway Power Profile

Cody — Wed, 04 Mar 2020 02:18:35 GMT

[quote userid="15146" url="~/f/nordic-q-a/57737/thingy91-lte-ble-gateway-power-profile/237857"]But the HCI_UART is still functional and running, correct ?[/quote]

No, not that I know of, I have commented out the entire main.c file and replaced the main function with:

void main(void) {
while (1) {
k_cpu_idle();
}
}

RE: Thingy91 LTE BLE Gateway Power Profile

Sigurd — Tue, 03 Mar 2020 16:10:02 GMT

[quote userid="82240" url="~/f/nordic-q-a/57737/thingy91-lte-ble-gateway-power-profile/236077"]Sorry if there was a misunderstanding, I am seeing 500uA with CONFIG_SERIAL=n set in both the application folder and samples/nrf91/spm.[/quote]

But the HCI_UART is still functional and running, correct ?

If yes, you liklely need to turn off the UART / HCI_UART to reduce the current.

RE: Thingy91 LTE BLE Gateway Power Profile

Cody — Mon, 24 Feb 2020 18:13:00 GMT

Hey Stian,

Thank you for the reply. Sorry if there was a misunderstanding, I am seeing 500uA with CONFIG_SERIAL=n set in both the application folder and samples/nrf91/spm.

I will try and power the nRF91 and nRF52 separately, that is a good idea, thank you for the suggestion.

If you can try and reproduce locally and provide me with a baseline Thingy91 project that would be excellent.

Thanks,
Cody

RE: Thingy91 LTE BLE Gateway Power Profile

Stian Røed Hafskjold — Thu, 20 Feb 2020 13:32:38 GMT

To turn off UART on nRF91 add the CONFIG_SERIAL=n to prj.conf in both the application folder and in the samples/nrf91/spm folder.

You can also power the nRF91 and the nRF52 separately on the P1 and P2 header to see where the current is drawn.

I've not measured any current on the HCI UART example yet, but if the UART is enabled all the time on the nRF52840, 500uA sounds reasonable. I can try to reproduce it here.