Extreme Pi boot optimization #InternetOfThings #RaspberryPi
KittenLabs looks for some power savings in the SolarCamPi project, a off-grid solar-powered WiFi camera.
In the project, a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W is being booted into Linux, a picture is taken, WiFi connectivity is established and the Pi is shut down again (to save power). This repeats every couple of minutes to always deliver a fresh image to a cloud service.
Each second the Pi Zero is powered up uses valuable electricity, which is a scarce resource in a solar-powered device. The user space application (server connection, picture upload, etc.) was already optimized as best as possible.
The electronics setup was also specifically designed to use as little power as possible while asleep.
There a 2 possible ways to reduce total energy consumption further:
decrease power consumption / current
decrease time spent running
So a Nordic Power Profiler Kit II was used to monitor power usage changing various items.
See what was changed and the results in the post here.
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