Low Power library for Arduino C33

The Arduino Low Power Library for Portenta C33 is a dedicated library designed to significantly reduce power consumption in projects using the Portenta C33 board. This is especially crucial for applications that rely on battery power.

The library provides simple yet powerful functions to put the Renesas MCU into various low-power states, thereby conserving energy when the device is idle.

By using this library, you can configure the board to enter either Sleep Mode or Deep Sleep Mode. Sleep Mode allows the device to retain its memory contents and resume operations quickly, making it ideal for applications where a quick wake-up is necessary.

Deep Sleep Mode, on the other hand, achieves greater power savings by shutting down most of the device’s functionality and requiring a reset to wake up, which is suitable for scenarios where long periods of inactivity are expected.

The library also supports flexible wake-up sources, such as GPIO pins and RTC alarms. This flexibility allows the device to be awakened by external events (e.g., button presses) or at scheduled times (e.g., timed data logging). The simplified API ensures that developers can implement these power-saving features with minimal effort and without requiring in-depth knowledge of power management techniques.

Multiple Sleep Modes:

1. Sleep Mode: Reduces power consumption by putting the processor into a low-power state while retaining memory contents.

1. Deep Sleep Mode: Achieves even greater power savings by shutting down most of the device’s functionality, restarting upon wake-up.

Flexible Wake-Up Sources:

GPIO Pins: Configurable pins can wake the device from sleep when a change is detected (e.g., a button press).

RTC Alarm: Allows the device to wake up at a specified time, useful for periodic data logging or scheduled tasks.

Ease of Use:

Simplified API makes it easy to implement power-saving features without deep knowledge of power management techniques.

Key Functions and Usage

Setup Wake-Up Sources:

Here's an overview of the reduction in power usage that you can expect from this library.

Using the library, you can go from a normal operations with peripheral off absorbing 41.37 mA, while in Deep sleep mode, you can reach 59 uA !

Refer to the table on the library's Github page https://github.com/arduino-libraries/Arduino_LowPowerPortentaC33

GPIO Wake-Up:

lowPower.setWakeupPin(A0, RISING);

Configures pin A0 to wake the device on a rising signal it accepts also falling

please note that depending on the pin used, there are different priorities , PIN 0 has higher priority

RTC Alarm Wake-Up:

Enables the Real-Time Clock (RTC) to wake the device.

Entering Sleep Modes:

Sleep Mode:

Puts the device into a low-power sleep mode, where it consumes less power but can quickly resume operation.

Deep Sleep Mode:

Puts the device into a deep sleep state, where it consumes minimal power and requires a reset to wake up.

Conclusion

The Arduino Low Power Library for Portenta C33 is an essential swiss-knife tool to optimize the power consumption of their projects. By providing easy-to-use functions for entering low-power states and configuring wake-up sources, this library makes it simple to extend the battery life of your devices. This is particularly useful for applications where power efficiency is critical, such as remote sensing and IoT projects.

For more details and to access the library, visit the Arduino Low Power Library for Portenta C33 GitHub page.

if you are using another board like MKR or nano, please check this documentation https://docs.arduino.cc/learn/electronics/low-power/