I'm trying to build a moisture sensor that can run long-term with the display on. My current model uses an OLED display, which it only activates when you hit a button to take a reading. I have various devices in my home that run off a coin cell, and seem to be able to keep a fairly complex LCD (without backlighting) running for weeks. I'm wondering if anyone can explain how to keep an LCD running for an extended period on very low power, whether it can be done with an OLED instead (I have a few of these lying around, the ubiquitous ones form Sparkfun), and if not, what sort of hardware I should be looking into. Thanks!
Hi amaschas, welcome.
How often would you like to update the information on your screen ?
If you do not need to update it very often, consider the use of an e-ink display.
You cant write to it at which time it consumes some power.
After that it consumes very little (read none) power to keep the contents intact.
So perhaps you should study that.
I can't tell you anything about availability and price of said displays.
The information doesn't update very often, which makes it a lot easier. I have looked at e-ink displays, but they tend to be on the expensive side. I'm hoping to output this data on the kind of display you might see on a cheap digital wristwatch.