System Off - High power consumption

[page-01123]

Hi there,

I am looking to leverage system off to minimize power when device is not being used. However, something isn't working right as system power consumption is roughly 500 uA (10x what it should be). 

I am using nRF Connect SDK v2.2.0 with Zephyr v3.2.99 and running on XIAO BLE Sense board. I am using Nordic Power Profiler tool w/ PPK2 to supply 3V3. To reproduce, I am using the sample application zephyr/samples/boards/nrf/system_off. When measuring power, I have disabled debug options, disconnected the programmer, and set CONFIG_SERIAL=n. To ensure the system is indeed reaching system off, I added code to turn on LED after the system off sleep - the LED would turn on if system off failed. If I instead use an Arduino/MBED deep_sleep example I am measuring around 24 uA (which is what I would expect). 

I have ordered an NRF52480 DK that should be arriving early next week that I will test as well. 

Getting system off to work correctly is pretty critical for the application. Please let me know if there is anything additional I can try.

[Simonr]

Hi

I tested this on a DK on my end and the system_off sample got down to ~4µA in system OFF mode on my end. Have you configured the sample to use the correct board file for the board you're using on your end, and can you show me how the PPK2 is connected to your BLE sense board? What code did you add to turn on/off the LED you mention? Can you try removing this piece of code to make sure the project code is as close to the sample as possible?

Best regards,

Simon

[sanadan]

Hello,
Did you find a solution? at the moment i'm working on a XIAO BLE where I also need to get low consumption deep sleep, but get no lower than 545uA, as opposed to the 23uA I get using deep sleep in the arduino/bluefruit .

[jelsesser]

HI

I'm in the same situation. With Arduino code in Xiao Ble Sense, I got great consumption values (around 100uA with a BLE application). But developing with Zephyr, it waste around 1500uA doing the same work. I've set CONFIG_PM=y, and everything that I could find on every forum (here, seeed, github). The only thing that is sure, is that there is an open issue about this: https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/issues/55543.

There is a possible solution explained here: https://forum.seeedstudio.com/t/low-power-with-xiao-nrf52840-on-zephyr-rtos/270491, but it's a workaround to the problem instead.

I don't know if there is some ticket open in DevZone about this issue, beacause of the Xiao Ble turns unusefull with such consumtions for whoose that dont want to use Arduino. 

Regards