6 ms·

Why are we even using a Raspberry Pi for battery powered projects... 30 mA draw is so high you'll be changing batteries every 2 days, and that is without doing

Why are we even using a Raspberry Pi for battery powered projects... 30 mA draw is so high you'll be changing batteries every 2 days, and that is without doing anything. Compare that to f.e. a normal phone chipset with deep sleep, which draws about 9 mA with a cellular connection, or .1-.2 mA in flight mode. Or, if you just use the Pi for sensor readings, get a proper microcontroller, where current is measured in micro (or even nano-)amps...

agumonkey 11y ago
But are these phone chip application-class or domain specific ones ? meaning you can leverage linux ecosystem or do you have to program on their ~OS ? I was looking for the most power efficient thing that could run a minimal desktop on battery and fit into my palm.
- janjongboom 11y ago
  Kinda unrelated to the whole Rpi discussion, but the SOC of any phone that runs Android would do. If that is Linux'y enough for you then it could be a solution. The problem is sourcing the SOCs. Spreadtrum makes some nice chips that include app processor, cellular, WiFi, Bluetooth, etc. for ~7$ but they're not for sale if you're not an ODM. This is a great article [1] about how Chinese SOC manufacturers and Chinese IP works. I ended up just ripping out the mainboard of phones to get access to the SOC [2]. [1] http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4297 http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4297 [2] http://janos.io/ http://janos.io/
  - agumonkey 11y ago
    I thougth you were thinking of ~dumbphones, but sure enough any smartphone these days is exceptional in most features. Just today I saw a chinese dual core smartphone phone for 34$... The thing is that unless you're already in the know you can't repurpose the board. ps: funny, just an hour ago I was trying to flash an old nexus s with CM*.
    - ZenoArrow 11y ago
      > "The thing is that unless you're already in the know you can't repurpose the board." That's why projects like Fernvale are potentially very useful, as they would make it easier to repurpose the cheap hardware used for feature phones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpEqDPYtf9s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpEqDPYtf9s https://github.com/xobs/fernly https://github.com/xobs/fernly
      - agumonkey 11y ago
        I heard Bunnie was a master but the FPGA cpu MITM had me sitting down. Fantasy level impressive.
    - moonchrome 11y ago
      On the higher end you have last gen quad core Intel Atom Tablets with Windows 10, 2gb ram, USB, bluetooth, wifi and 8'' touch screen for 80$ [1]. The price of hardware in China is beyond amazing - honestly I could run a laptop off those specs with a slightly larger better screen (assuming I don't need to compile C++ :D) [1] http://www.banggood.com/Cube-iWork8-Ultimate-32GB-Intel-Cherry-trail-Z8300-Quad-Core-1_8GHz-8-Inch-Windows-10-Tablet-p-1009393.html http://www.banggood.com/Cube-iWork8-Ultimate-32GB-Intel-Cher...
      - agumonkey 11y ago
        And even compiling C++... synthetically this thing is 50% faster than my current laptop. In 2008 this would have been a great machine to program in C++.
lucaspiller 11y ago
At this rate it's not far off what you would get with an ATtiny while active, which consumes around 10mA[0], the difference is that those and other micro controllers have sleep modes which reduce the consumption into the uA range - hopefully details on something like that for the Pi will be released too. [0] https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/h2ohno/low-power-attiny https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/h2ohno/low-power-attiny
Andrenid 11y ago
For someone like me who has only just started playing with microcontrollers thanks to the Arduino and RasPi and has never touched/played with anything else.. could you give any suggestions/links on what I should consider using for sensors? I have a bunch of "nodes" I need to make, each one has a single sensor (temperature, moisture, light, or distance using a sonic sensor) that will send back to a Raspberry Pi base station. I was going to use RasPi's for all of them since it's all I know. Each will be battery powered with a solar panel. Open to any/all suggestions people can give me on how best to attack this!
- noonespecial 11y ago
  Esp8266 wifi/micro module. You can program it in lua!
  - ZenoArrow 11y ago
    Yeah, ESP8266 is a good choice for IoT projects. It supports quite a few different languages, I think the most recent addition was BASIC. It's very cheap as well (have seen people talking about prices as low as $3). http://www.esp8266.com http://www.esp8266.com Also worth knowing that the successor to the ESP8266, the ESP32, is currently in beta testing: https://hackaday.com/2015/11/06/the-latest-best-wifi-module-has-been-announced/ https://hackaday.com/2015/11/06/the-latest-best-wifi-module-... https://twitter.com/hashtag/esp32 https://twitter.com/hashtag/esp32
    - Renaud 11y ago
      You can order them for about US$3 per unit, or $2.85 if you order 10 from BangGood.[1] You can get them for even cheaper directly from Chinese distributors. Banggood, DealExtreme and AlieExpress are convenient and ship worldwide, but they are not the cheapest, although they are usually already quite cheap compared to most. [1]:http://www.banggood.com/ESP8266-ESP-12E-Remote-Serial-Port-WIFI-Transceiver-Wireless-Module-p-980984.html http://www.banggood.com/ESP8266-ESP-12E-Remote-Serial-Port-W...
- janjongboom 11y ago
kwhitefoot 11y ago
That's what people who don't own smartphones say about smartphones.
- Dylan16807 11y ago
  Smartphones last as long as dumb phones if you turn off background data transfers. So it spends part of the time being highly capable, and part of the time sleeping with no downsides. The Pi is just not cut out to be a passive battery-powered device.
radiorental 11y ago
First and foremost, the Raspi boards are for teaching. That's the goal of the foundation. I would guess the vast majority of people who buy a raspi are dipping their toes in to the world of hardware - not building semi/permanent applications. Yes there are absolutely better suited platforms.
geerlingguy 11y ago
The Pi (and Arduino) is a gateway drug, imo. As a software guy, I don't think I'd have ever gotten into circuit design or hardware hacking of any sort until I brought a Pi B and Arduino Uno. For fun, first-time projects, it's a lot easier to have someone write a Python script and go, rather than breadboard a circuit and write in a more obscure, less-abstracted language.
- milkanic 11y ago
  check out http://wipy.io/ http://wipy.io/ . Best of both worlds and draws 850uA in suspend mode.
  - sciurus 11y ago
    Cool! I did not realize there was a board with built-in wifi that ran https://micropython.org/ https://micropython.org/
  - geerlingguy 11y ago
    Very cool; unfortunately it's a bit pricey... and won't be available for a while. I'd like to pick one up when it is, though!

agumonkey 11y ago

But are these phone chip application-class or domain specific ones ? meaning you can leverage linux ecosystem or do you have to program on their ~OS ? I was looking for the most power efficient thing that could run a minimal desktop on battery and fit into my palm.

janjongboom 11y ago
Kinda unrelated to the whole Rpi discussion, but the SOC of any phone that runs Android would do. If that is Linux'y enough for you then it could be a solution. The problem is sourcing the SOCs. Spreadtrum makes some nice chips that include app processor, cellular, WiFi, Bluetooth, etc. for ~7$ but they're not for sale if you're not an ODM. This is a great article [1] about how Chinese SOC manufacturers and Chinese IP works. I ended up just ripping out the mainboard of phones to get access to the SOC [2]. [1] http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4297 http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4297 [2] http://janos.io/ http://janos.io/
- agumonkey 11y ago
  I thougth you were thinking of ~dumbphones, but sure enough any smartphone these days is exceptional in most features. Just today I saw a chinese dual core smartphone phone for 34$... The thing is that unless you're already in the know you can't repurpose the board. ps: funny, just an hour ago I was trying to flash an old nexus s with CM*.
  - ZenoArrow 11y ago
    > "The thing is that unless you're already in the know you can't repurpose the board." That's why projects like Fernvale are potentially very useful, as they would make it easier to repurpose the cheap hardware used for feature phones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpEqDPYtf9s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpEqDPYtf9s https://github.com/xobs/fernly https://github.com/xobs/fernly
    - agumonkey 11y ago
      I heard Bunnie was a master but the FPGA cpu MITM had me sitting down. Fantasy level impressive.
  - moonchrome 11y ago
    On the higher end you have last gen quad core Intel Atom Tablets with Windows 10, 2gb ram, USB, bluetooth, wifi and 8'' touch screen for 80$ [1]. The price of hardware in China is beyond amazing - honestly I could run a laptop off those specs with a slightly larger better screen (assuming I don't need to compile C++ :D) [1] http://www.banggood.com/Cube-iWork8-Ultimate-32GB-Intel-Cherry-trail-Z8300-Quad-Core-1_8GHz-8-Inch-Windows-10-Tablet-p-1009393.html http://www.banggood.com/Cube-iWork8-Ultimate-32GB-Intel-Cher...
    - agumonkey 11y ago
      And even compiling C++... synthetically this thing is 50% faster than my current laptop. In 2008 this would have been a great machine to program in C++.

lucaspiller 11y ago

At this rate it's not far off what you would get with an ATtiny while active, which consumes around 10mA[0], the difference is that those and other micro controllers have sleep modes which reduce the consumption into the uA range - hopefully details on something like that for the Pi will be released too. [0] https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/h2ohno/low-power-attiny https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/h2ohno/low-power-attiny

Andrenid 11y ago

For someone like me who has only just started playing with microcontrollers thanks to the Arduino and RasPi and has never touched/played with anything else.. could you give any suggestions/links on what I should consider using for sensors? I have a bunch of "nodes" I need to make, each one has a single sensor (temperature, moisture, light, or distance using a sonic sensor) that will send back to a Raspberry Pi base station. I was going to use RasPi's for all of them since it's all I know. Each will be battery powered with a solar panel. Open to any/all suggestions people can give me on how best to attack this!

noonespecial 11y ago
Esp8266 wifi/micro module. You can program it in lua!
- ZenoArrow 11y ago
  Yeah, ESP8266 is a good choice for IoT projects. It supports quite a few different languages, I think the most recent addition was BASIC. It's very cheap as well (have seen people talking about prices as low as $3). http://www.esp8266.com http://www.esp8266.com Also worth knowing that the successor to the ESP8266, the ESP32, is currently in beta testing: https://hackaday.com/2015/11/06/the-latest-best-wifi-module-has-been-announced/ https://hackaday.com/2015/11/06/the-latest-best-wifi-module-... https://twitter.com/hashtag/esp32 https://twitter.com/hashtag/esp32
  - Renaud 11y ago
    You can order them for about US$3 per unit, or $2.85 if you order 10 from BangGood.[1] You can get them for even cheaper directly from Chinese distributors. Banggood, DealExtreme and AlieExpress are convenient and ship worldwide, but they are not the cheapest, although they are usually already quite cheap compared to most. [1]:http://www.banggood.com/ESP8266-ESP-12E-Remote-Serial-Port-WIFI-Transceiver-Wireless-Module-p-980984.html http://www.banggood.com/ESP8266-ESP-12E-Remote-Serial-Port-W...
janjongboom 11y ago

kwhitefoot 11y ago

That's what people who don't own smartphones say about smartphones.

Dylan16807 11y ago
Smartphones last as long as dumb phones if you turn off background data transfers. So it spends part of the time being highly capable, and part of the time sleeping with no downsides. The Pi is just not cut out to be a passive battery-powered device.

radiorental 11y ago

First and foremost, the Raspi boards are for teaching. That's the goal of the foundation. I would guess the vast majority of people who buy a raspi are dipping their toes in to the world of hardware - not building semi/permanent applications. Yes there are absolutely better suited platforms.

geerlingguy 11y ago

The Pi (and Arduino) is a gateway drug, imo. As a software guy, I don't think I'd have ever gotten into circuit design or hardware hacking of any sort until I brought a Pi B and Arduino Uno. For fun, first-time projects, it's a lot easier to have someone write a Python script and go, rather than breadboard a circuit and write in a more obscure, less-abstracted language.

milkanic 11y ago
check out http://wipy.io/ http://wipy.io/ . Best of both worlds and draws 850uA in suspend mode.
- sciurus 11y ago
  Cool! I did not realize there was a board with built-in wifi that ran https://micropython.org/ https://micropython.org/
- geerlingguy 11y ago
  Very cool; unfortunately it's a bit pricey... and won't be available for a while. I'd like to pick one up when it is, though!