So you’ve selected components with low power, developed some firmware, and you want to know if your device is consuming as little power as expected. This is more difficult than you might expect. First, the power consumption in ultra-low power mode can be so low that most multimeters will not measure it accurately. As mentioned previously, active mode can easily consume 15,000X more power than in low power mode, so measuring data through more than four orders of magnitude can be very difficult. The shunt in a multimeter in its uA current range will be high enough that the burden voltage during active mode could be very significant and prevent correct operation. There are a number of tools that help with measurement and validation, roughly split between whether they work in just steady-state modes or if they can measure data through wake cycles.

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Steady State Measurement Tools

1. uCurrent Gold
2. Nanoranger
3. Current Ranger

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Power Profiling Tools

1. Built into development boards
   1. SAML21 Xplained Pro
2. Joulescope
3. Otii Arc
4. Nordic Power Profiler Kit II
5. Angler Circuits ZS-2102-A IOT Power Profiler
6. (Shameless Plug) MetaShunt