@wizard Just wondering about the Auto-Off Timer on PB… does it put the PB3 into a sleep-mode, or just turn the patterns off?
Could if go into a sleep mode, and reduce power consumption right down? Thoughts?
It’s more or less the same as setting brightness all the way down. Your pattern still runs, and the LEDs are still getting power, just drawing black. The power consumption of PB itself doesn’t change, but this is pretty minimal at around 0.5W to 1W. Most LEDs still draw some power even when drawing black. There’s also the power supply, and most will still draw a bit even with no load.
Your best bet would be to get an inline power meter and measure it. Something like the kill-a-watt. Then you can see what your power supply takes without anything, then add in PB, then add in dark LEDs. Check out your other electronics too while you are at it, unless it has a hardware off switch it will still sip power when off!
One way to save more power is to get an external switch/timer and schedule things with that instead, which would cut off power to the power supply.
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Thanks!
Just for interest… could you get the PB3 go into a sleep-mode (like auto-off timer), and wake itself up again?
Technically possible, but it would drop off wifi and would appear dead until it woke up again. You’d still have to keep feeding it power, and both the power supply and LEDs would be consuming power, so the total power savings wouldn’t be that great and it could be very confusing for most people.
I wouldn’t worry about it unless it’s for a battery powered wearable.
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Yeah, that was my main thought: sleep mode is for use with limited battery power. Running led lights on battery power, the main drain is the LEDs, not the PB.
If you want it to use less power in a power rich environment, use an external switch. If you want it to work in a low resource environment (on batteries), use a relay to cut the LEDs power, leaving the PB running to restore it.
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