Measuring power consumption with Arduino Uno & ACS712 (current sensor)

[mrimskiy]

@anon35827816

Start communication session.
Start power measurement
Measure power every 10ms or so. Store results.
End communication session.
Calculate power consumption for every 10ms bracket you've measured.
Add up results of all the brackets.

10ms is probably too big of a bracket because a communications session will be shorter and perhaps have a more intermittent/chaotic power consumption (it isn't stable for 10ms). Hence my earlier questions about sampling speed. You might have to sample 1ms brackets, or even 100us brackets to get good accuracy. You'll have to experiment.

I have removed the ACS712 and just connected the HM-10 to the Arduino Uno. Then I used a simple code where I sent one "Hey" to my smartphone and measured the operation time. I got 4 milliseconds as a result. I measured the operation time again and again and got the same result of 4 milliseconds. Is this way of measuring the operation time correct? Or do I have to keep my full circuit (with ACS712) and my full code (with analogRead(A0) etc)? This is the simple code I used:

#include <SoftwareSerial.h>

SoftwareSerial ble(2, 3); // RX, TX

void setup() {
  // Open serial port
  Serial.begin(9600);
  // begin bluetooth serial port communication
  ble.begin(9600);
  
  long int t1 = millis();
  ble.write("Hey!");
  long int t2 = millis();
  Serial.print("Time taken by the task: "); Serial.print(t2-t1); Serial.println(" milliseconds");
}

// Now for the loop

void loop() {
  
}

Ok, so one single data session's duration is 4 ms. As told, one wireless data transmission has a weird shape, for example:

Let's say we want to take 5 power measurements of 1 ms each to be able to encompass 1 whole data session: mA_total = mA1 + mA2 + mA3 + mA4 + mA5

So, do we need a for-loop like this?:

  for(int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
    Vout = (Vout + (resADC * analogRead(A0)));   
    delay(1);
  }

And where exactly do I have to put my sigle data transmission code?:

ble.write("Hey!");

In the for-loop? Before the for-loop? After the for-loop?
If I put it before the for-loop (and thus before the measurement: analogRead(A0)), doesn't this mean that the measurement will start when the data transmission will have ended? That doesn't make sense I think.
If I put it after the for-loop, then the data will be sent after the measurement will have finished. That doesn't make sense either; I will be measuring void in both cases.

Putting the ble.write("Hey!") code in the for-loop gives rise to the same questions: Before the measurement? After the measurement? Leading to the same confusion.

And where should all this bunch of code together:

  ble.write("Hey!");

    // Vout is read 1000 Times for precision
  for(int i = 0; i < 1000; i++) {
    Vout = (Vout + (resADC * analogRead(A0)));   
    delay(1);
  }

be placed? In the void loop or in the setup? Bearing in mind that I just want 1 data transmission. The void loop wouldn't stop making data transmissions unless I would add some sort of stop-code in it. Or do I have to make multiple data transmissions and thus keep the code in the void loop?