How to turn on and off a Raspberry Pi every day for some minute with an Arduino

I need to make photographs of plants outside in the garden regularly.
I plan to do it with a Raspberry Pi Zero connected to a battery.
The pi should turn on every day once or twice at the same time. When the pi boots up it takes a photo then shuts down. So the powering should run maximum 5 minutes at once. That's more than enough. It would be ideal to run this cycle for several weeks, of course it depends on the battery.

I am thinking to control the power and the switch timing with an Arduino nano. I've read that in deep sleep the power consumption of Arduino is very low.

Could you help me on this? I am quite a newbie in electronics. Some years ago I tried Arduino, but I have only a very little experience on it. What does this project needs beside the nano? I would like to make the most simple solution with the least soldering :slight_smile:

Thank you

I would even switch to a Pro Mini which has no serial chip = less power consumption.

But it is possible.
To switch power => use a transistor, preferably a MOSFET. (Google is you friend.) Or you could use a relay but it will use more power.
For timing => RTC module. The clock of the Arduino can have a couple of percent error which can lead to hours of error over a couple of weeks. A RTC will stay within seconds over years :slight_smile:

I would first suggest to make the circuit with the transistor and try to control the Pi. Then try to understand using the RTC and implement it. And last, try to implement deep sleep.