RE: Power Optimization in HID Keyboard Example

Stefan Birnir Sverrisson — Wed, 11 Mar 2015 13:01:00 GMT

I would like to point you to this thread which is the current consumption guide for the nRF51

See section "Low power mode with BLE softdevice" in the linked thread.
Typically, when the examples are marked as "not power optimized", they are only lacking the compiler optimization needed for optimized power saving. See the "Compiler optimization" section in the linked thread to enable compiler optimization.

Update 12.3.2015 To optimize the code for minimal current consumption, you would need to optimize the code for speed. For that purpose, choose "high" level of optimization and select all the optimization options on the right hand side. Also choose "Speed" and "No size constraints" if you think have enough available ROM for your application on the nRF51. Choose "Multi-file Compilation" in order to apply your optimization settings to all your project files.

When optimizing, it is a tradeoff if you wish to optimize for speed or size. If there are no ROM size constraints for your application, i.e. the size of the application is relatively small, then you can fully optimize for speed, which will make the CPU execute as few instructions as possible to carry out the desired functionality in your code, which will save power.