2018-12-28, 01:45 AM
Calypso claims "Autonomy with no sunlight: in sleep mode up to 1 year, while measuring up to ~30 days." That is of course with a decent charge. The 29 mA was for another sensor I was looking at on Ebay. That's still pretty low, but you are absolutely right that a little patch solar cell would be completely inadequate.
I don't know what microprocessor they use, but I do know that an ESP32 draws around 9 uA in sleep mode - it's considerably higher when Bluetooth is activated, so I doubt this is what they are using. According to the Calypso manual, the modes are determined by the state of the internal battery - below 20% it goes into "Low Power Mode" and only provides updates at 1HZ. Below 10% charge, it goes into sleep mode until recharged, only providing BLE advertisements. At 2.5% charge, it turns off until recharged.
I'm still on the fence about using wireless at all - I think regardless of their experience, getting a BLE signal from the masthead into the cabin is ambitious!
Can you take some photos of your new wind sensor? It sounds awesome.
I don't know what microprocessor they use, but I do know that an ESP32 draws around 9 uA in sleep mode - it's considerably higher when Bluetooth is activated, so I doubt this is what they are using. According to the Calypso manual, the modes are determined by the state of the internal battery - below 20% it goes into "Low Power Mode" and only provides updates at 1HZ. Below 10% charge, it goes into sleep mode until recharged, only providing BLE advertisements. At 2.5% charge, it turns off until recharged.
I'm still on the fence about using wireless at all - I think regardless of their experience, getting a BLE signal from the masthead into the cabin is ambitious!
Can you take some photos of your new wind sensor? It sounds awesome.