Make Power Optimization Accessible

Community Suggestions for the Arduino Project
1

One of Arduino's most recognized draw backs is that it makes the power optimization features of the MCU inaccessible in order to make Arduino simple.

Suggestion: Make Power Optimization Accessible

  • Oscillator selection (internal / external and on the fly switching)
  • Customization of main loop
  • Make the various sleep states and the interrupts to trigger them accessible
  • Make the above items easy to understand and use (i.e. using a GUI based wizard to generate code and libraries)

Additional tools to provide power estimates based on ones code would also be very useful. Many projects are battery operated and thus these are critical features, not just for the professional engineer but the target maker market for Arduino.

2

  • Oscillator selection (internal / external and on the fly switching)
    This is one of the first features I put into my own design. Building our own Uno is dead simple, and costs less too.
    16Mhz was chosen to keep the timing API working across different AVR's

  • Customization of main loop
    http://arduino.land/FAQ/content/2/2/en/can-i-use-int-main-with-arduino.html

  • Make the various sleep states and the interrupts to trigger them accessible
    Just add an include:

#include <avr/sleep.h>
  • Make the above items easy to understand and use (i.e. using a GUI based wizard to generate code and libraries)
    That is a great job for you! :slight_smile:
3

Note that on most of the official Arduino hardware, there are many power-inefficient parts other than the AVR processor, so using the various AVR power-saving features is of little use.

4

+1 for westfw