LowPower.idle() fails to sleep?

Projects Programming
1

This sketch

#include <LowPower.h>

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);
  Serial.println("test lowpower");

}
void zdelay() {
  LowPower.idle(SLEEP_FOREVER, ADC_OFF, TIMER2_OFF, TIMER1_OFF, TIMER0_ON, SPI_OFF, USART0_ON, TWI_OFF);
}

void loop() {
  zdelay();
  Serial.println(millis());
}

prints one line every millisecond or thereabouts. I expected it to suspend in low power mode until I sent it a character on the serial line. Similarly, SLEEP_1S does not delay for 1 second as delay(1000) does. Sketch compiles and links without error.

What am I doing wrong or misunderstand?

On the plus side, using this lowpower sleep instead of delay(1000) does cut power consumption by a few mA.

2

The call to Serial.println() will write that just into a buffer which will be clear using an interrupt. As the UART is kept active in your call the interrupt that is triggered to move the next character from the buffer into the output register will wake the processor immediately after it went sleeping.