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battery issues Meta Motion R

markvmarkv
in Hardware
hi

I bought a Meta Motion R and do have some issues with battery life time. I use the lipo battery 100mA and run the last firmware (1.3.2)

On my android smartphone I run latest Metawear APP.

My issue:
- I charge the Meta Motion R for a day to be sure that the battery is full.
- Then I leave the Meta Motion R laying on a table / no movement at all
- I close all my apps on my smartphone so there is no connection over bluetooth
- I do not change any settings (advertising interval eg.) at all. (this is also a issue, I can not change any settings at all, see down)
- After two days the battery is down to 1% and after connecting and reading some sensor value the battery is dead and I have to charge the battery again.

While buying this sensor I informed about the lifetime of the battery when the sensor was lying on a table (no movement) and by then I was said that the battery would last 4 weeks. 

Question: 
- Is it normal that the battery is dead after 2 days of not using the sensor? do you have any idea what could be the issue?
- And is it possible to do something to reduce power consumption?
- In the android app there is the field 'settings'. with the fields (device name / advertising interval / advertising timeout / advertising TX power). they are all empty. What values can I fill in here? does that solve any issues? What are the default values?
- I can fill in these values and then press 'save' , but nothing happens?
- disconnecting the sensor and connecting it again and opening the settings again shows empty fields (although I changed them?)
- what values do I have to fill in? what do you advise? could this solve my issue?

After solving the battery issue mentioned above I want to create the following functionality:
- several sensors connected to a bluetooth gateway (raspberry pi)
- Stage 1: Sensor laying on the table / no movement: sensor in sleeping mode only sending information 1 time per 5 seconds (life-beat) . Only sending battery status information. No sensor movement data sent
- Stage 2: Sensor lifted from table / movement:  Sensor awakes. sending 10 times a second sensor movement information (sensor fusion / quarternions / eulers). while it is moved it remains sending movement information.
- Stage 3: Sensor back on the table: Sensor back into sleep mode after 5 seconds not being moved

Could you please advise me how to create the above mentioned functionality?
which parameters (advertise interval eg.) should be changed during the different stages?

hope to hear

gr marv










 

Comments

  • EricEric
    We are aware of the battery life issue with the MetaMotion boards and are working on a firmware update to address the problem.

    It appears the latest metamotion firmware update broke compatibility with the current sample app.  The Android API has already been updated to support firmware v1.3.2 so you can simply use the latest API (v2.8.6) to read and write the advertising parameters.  I will update the app to use the latest API later today.

    Please move last section of your question to a separate thread as it is not relevant to the thread topic.
  • levdikpavellevdikpavel
    Hi!

    I have similar issue. I also have Motion R, Rechargeable Lithium Battery 100mA and run the last firmware (1.3.2).

    But I have problems not with battery (at least not only with battery). 

    In the android app MetaWear there is the field 'Settings'. with the fields (device name / advertising interval / advertising timeout / advertising TX power). they are all empty. I filled them with some values ('Pulse2', 1000, 1, 0) and pressed the button 'Save'. Did that many times. (That was during logging data with MetaBase). Nothing happened at this screen. After goipg back to list of devices I stopped see this device. Neither in MetaWear app, nor in MetaBase. 

    I can't write my own app, so I can only use your official apps. So, smth went wrong and I still can't see the device. 

    What can I do?
  • EricEric
    The Android app has been updated to work with fw v1.3.2.

    You can try repeatedly pressing the button to try and get the board to show up in a scan.  Once it does, clear the ad settings since you have most likely set the advertising timeout to 1ms.
  • levdikpavellevdikpavel
    edited January 2017
    Ok, Eric, thanks. It's my fault I set the timeout 1 ms. But you should make the app to have some protection from my stupid actions, for example to prohibit to set advertising timeout less then 100 ms or smth. Because I just don't know at all which value to use. I just wanted to change the device name, but it was necessary to fill all the fields. And the app didn't told me that my changes were accepted. But it should.

    By the way, I still don't understand what does advertising timeout mean? What is it all about? 

    >> You can try repeatedly pressing the button to try and get the board to show up in a scan
    Did that 100 times. Doesn't work. Is there some way to solve the problem by writing some simple code C# which will manage this 1 ms timeout and change settings? (I know the MAC-address)

    Is there any way to reset the device? There is a button on the board, but I didn't understand if it makes some changes. It will be good to make the real reset button, or make 10 seconds of keep pushing the button to reset the device with original settings.
  • EricEric
    If it's still not showing up in scans after a button press, the battery is most likely dead which works out just fine in this case.  What you can do now is hold the button down then plug in the USB cable to recharge the board.  The board will then advertise as "MetaBoot" then revert revert back to "MetaWear" after 60 seconds.

    Advertising timeout is exactly what it sounds like, a timer that counts how long the board should advertise for.
  • markvmarkv
    hi levdikpavel and eric,

    I installed on the meta motion the new software 1.3.3 and could see al settings made for advertising. for me also the advertising timeout is not clear


    "The advertisement timeout is used to tell the device for how long it should advertise. If it is set to 0 no timeout will be used, and the device will advertise until it is told not to."


    so if I set the advertising timeout on 10.000  (so 10 seconds), it will advertise for 10 seconds and then will stop...  
    but my question? it will stop advertising. and what will it do then??
    does this make sense?

    i gave it a try and put it on 10.000. after saving, disconnecting and connecting again it was changed automaticallly to 16???

    for me it is also not clear what this advertising timeout does and what setting i should make in order to reduce power consumption of the sensor? 

    i will do some more testing and keep you updated

    gr markv







  • EricEric
    edited January 2017
    The board stops advertising and that's it.

    After taking another look at the Android API, the ad timeout description in the app is incorrect.  The value is in seconds (s) not milliseconds (ms) so use 10 (s) not 10.000 (ms).

    Doing BLE advertisements does consume power so you should simply terminate all advertising if you are trying to minimize power consumption though this does mean your device will no longer be discoverable until advertising is restarted.
  • levdikpavellevdikpavel
    edited January 2017
    Hi!

    Eric,

    >> the battery is most likely dead
    No, I tried to charge the battery the same moment I got the problem. It's not the reason.

    >> What you can do now is hold the button down then plug in the USB cable to recharge the board.  The board will then advertise as "MetaBoot" then revert revert back to "MetaWear" after 60 seconds.
    Is this the way to restart the board with default settings? Is this how it works? 
    I will try this after a week to be more sure the battery went dead. So, push the button down, plug in the USB cable, unpush the button up (after some seconds?)? Is this the right sequence?


    Can you explain please, what do all the values in Settings mean?
    • advertising interval - is it the time after that the board repeats advertising?
    • advertising timeout - is it the time after that the board stops the advertising process until it starts again after advertising interval? So, is there a logical rule
      "advertising timeout < advertising interval"?
    • advertising TX power - what is it? Which value to use?
  • EricEric
    Assuming then the battery is charged, pressing the button will start ble advertising; you will have to press it every second to restart the advertising once it times out and you must keep pressing until 

    It's a way to revert the changes specific from using the Settings panel in the sample app.

    markv's post has a link to the nordic developer's forum explaining the first 2 settings.  This post, from the same developer's forum, explains advertising tx.
  • levdikpavellevdikpavel
    Eric,

    Thank you, I got success!

    So, pressing the button is the way to keep MetaMotion device advertising even if its Settings tells not to.

    I just press the button and got my device in device list in the MetaWear app. I changed the settings to default and everything works now. Dead MetaMotion R raise again.
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