Customer:
I’m interested in integrating Inkplate 2 into our prototypes. Can you provide additional information on power consumption? We need to keep power consumption as low as possible in our products.
Originally submitted via email support on 27 November 2022. Migrated to the forum for community visibility.
Soldered Support:
Inkplate 2 has a low-power mode where it consumes around 8uA. To give you more detailed information about power consumption, could you provide more details about how you would use Inkplate 2? Would you use WiFi, what kind of information would you display/download, how many times should Inkplate refresh (for example, every 1 minute or every 5 hours), and would you be able to charge the battery so you can choose a battery capacity that fits your goals?
Customer:
I want to use it to display the temperature of a refrigerator. I can integrate it into our prototype and use a wired connection (RS485, I2C, Ethernet, CAN) to transmit the data. The refresh interval should be around once per minute. WiFi is also an option but not necessary.
Soldered Support:
In this case, the battery wouldn’t last very long. Inkplate’s e-paper needs about 20 seconds for a refresh, and during that time it consumes a lot of battery. Essentially, your information would be displayed for around 40 seconds before the next refresh, and refreshing that frequently would drain the battery very fast. If you need a detailed calculation of how long the battery would last, that can be determined. It would be much better if you refreshed it every 10 minutes or so instead.