Power Management
Found under System on the device's panel list.
Power Devices
Chooses which of the device's 17 power zones stay switched on while the device is awake and running normally.
The screen
Two columns of zone buttons, each labelled N:Name (for example
3:Audio) - the number is the zone as the console menu and host API
address it. Zone 1 through Zone 10 are in the left column; Zone 11
through Zone 17 fill the top of the right column, followed by two
control-line buttons, 18:WIO_RST (LoRa module reset) and
19:CM0_RUNPG (CM0 run/power-good) - not power rails, but toggled the
same way. A zone lit green is switched on; grey is off. On those two
buttons green means the line is driven high, which releases the part
rather than powering it; the console drives the same two lines with Set
WIO Reset Line and Set CM0 Run Line. The highlighted zone (its label
prefixed with ">") is the one the d-pad is currently pointing at.
The grid tracks the zone state the PIC reports, so a change the hardware makes on its own - for example a zone that comes on when USB is attached - shows up here without leaving and re-entering the screen.
Controls
| Button | Action |
|---|---|
| Left / Right | Switch between the two columns |
| Up / Down | Move the highlight to the next zone in the column |
| Center / Green | Turn the highlighted zone on or off |
| Gray | Next tab (Sleep Config) |
| Yellow | Previous tab (Power State) |
| Blue | Send this configuration |
| Red | Back - sends the configuration if a wakeup condition is set, otherwise cancels without sending |
| Cancel | This help page |
Tapping a zone button directly also toggles it and moves the highlight there. Gray and Yellow step through the four Power Management tabs (Devices, Sleep Config, Wakeup Conditions, Power State) and wrap around at either end.
Sending the configuration
Power Devices, Sleep Config, Wakeup Conditions and Power State are four tabs of one screen with a single Send action. Blue sends the zones and conditions set across Power Devices, Sleep Config and Wakeup Conditions to the power controller - there is no confirmation prompt.
Red is Back, but not a plain exit: leaving with a wakeup condition already set would strand that configuration unsent, so Red sends it first and then exits. With no wakeup condition set, Red just cancels and exits without sending. Cancel opens this help page and neither sends nor leaves.
Sending with none of the nine wakeup conditions checked leaves nothing selected to wake the device back up. See Wakeup Conditions before sending.
This screen confirms each change against the PIC's own status before calling it done, and the USB console does the same: Set Zone holds its answer open until the PIC's status frame agrees, and prints what it read back instead when it does not.
Zones
Seventeen zones can be switched here. Each button's label gives the zone number and what it powers:
| # | Name | Powers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sensors | IMU, magnetometer, humidity sensor, light sensor, IO expander |
| 2 | Display | LCD panel and touch controller |
| 3 | Audio | Audio codec |
| 4 | Sub-GHz | CC1101 radio and LoRa module |
| 5 | ESP32 | ESP32-C5 module |
| 6 | FPGA | FPGA and its SRAM |
| 7 | SD Card | microSD and its USB bridge |
| 8 | USB Hub | USB hub and EEPROMs |
| 9 | Board LED | Board-manager status LED - not a power rail |
| 10 | LEDs | RGB LEDs |
| 11 | Analog | DAC, ADC, opamps |
| 12 | Aux | Display auxiliary rail (tentative) |
| 13 | NFC/RFID | NFC and 125 kHz RFID |
| 14 | FTDI | USB serial bridge |
| 15 | CAN | CAN controller and transceiver |
| 16 | Debug CPU | On-board debug probe |
| 17 | CM0 | Compute module and its microSD |
All seventeen default to on. Switching a zone off can disable whole features. When you open a screen that requires a managed peripheral, the device switches that zone back on automatically and keeps it on while the screen is open. The peripheral may need a moment to start, so leave and reopen the screen if it was entered while its rail was still coming up.
Turning a zone off here only changes what stays powered while the device is awake; what stays powered during sleep is set separately on the Sleep Config tab. Zone 9 is the exception - it is not a power rail, so switching it only turns the board-manager LED on or off and has no effect on power in either mode.
Sleep Config
Chooses which power zones stay switched on if the device goes to sleep.
Sleep itself is handled by the power controller: an idle timer, set on the Wakeup Conditions tab, puts the device to sleep on its own once it has sat untouched long enough. This screen does not put the device to sleep by itself - it only configures which of the 17 power zones the power controller keeps alive for the sleep that follows, the same way Power Devices configures what stays on while the device is awake.
The screen
The same layout as Power Devices: two columns of the same 17 zones, each
labelled N:Name, Zone 1 through Zone 9 on the left and Zone 10 through
Zone 17 on the right. A zone lit blue stays powered during sleep; grey is
powered off. The highlighted zone is prefixed with ">". Each row's label
fits inside its button; it no longer spills into the row below it.
Controls
| Button | Action |
|---|---|
| Left / Right | Switch between the two columns |
| Up / Down | Move the highlight to the next zone in the column |
| Center / Green | Turn the highlighted zone on or off |
| Gray | Next tab (Wakeup Conditions) |
| Yellow | Previous tab (Power Devices) |
| Blue | Send this configuration |
| Red | Back - sends first if a wakeup condition is already checked |
| Cancel | This help page |
Tapping a zone button directly also toggles it and moves the highlight there.
Sending the configuration
Power Devices, Sleep Config, Wakeup Conditions and Power State are four tabs of one screen with a single Send action. Blue sends the zones and conditions set across Power Devices, Sleep Config and Wakeup Conditions to the power controller - there is no confirmation prompt.
Red is Back, but not a plain exit: if a wakeup condition is already checked, Red sends the same configuration as Blue and then leaves; only when no wakeup condition is checked does Red leave without sending anything.
Cancel opens this help page, on a short press or a long press. It no longer needs to be held, and it no longer sends you back to the main menu instead of showing help.
Sending with none of the six wakeup conditions checked leaves nothing selected to wake the device back up. See Wakeup Conditions before sending.
Sleep zones
All 17 zones are off by default, so sleep cuts power to everything unless a zone is turned on here. Some of that is done for you: checking ESP on the Wakeup Conditions tab forces zone 5 (ESP32) on, checking IMU or Light forces zone 1 (Sensors) on, checking WIO GPIO forces zone 4 (Sub-GHz) on, checking UART forces zone 9 (Board LED) on, and checking CAN forces zone 15 (CAN) on, overriding whatever this screen shows for that zone. This is applied the moment a condition is checked and again right before Send, so a sensor a wakeup condition depends on cannot end up unpowered by accident. Zones forced on this way still show their normal color here; the screen does not mark them as locked. See Power Devices for what each zone powers, including zone 9, the board-manager LED, which is not a power rail.
Where this configuration lives
This screen's copy of the zones, and the firmware's own cached copy that Send actually transmits, both live in RAM on the display processor - not on the SD card or in flash. A display reboot loses whatever was set here until it is sent again. Send transmits the configuration to the power controller, but the firmware cannot read it back afterward: the power controller's status reply for this is not implemented, so nothing here can confirm what the power controller is actually holding.
Wakeup Conditions
Chooses what can wake the device from sleep, and how long the device can sit idle before it puts itself to sleep on its own.
The screen
A list of nine wakeup conditions - ESP, IO Change, IMU, Light, WIO GPIO, Buttons, UART, CAN, USB Detect - each lit orange when checked, grey when not. All nine rows fit above the Idle Timeout strip; nothing is cut off. Below the list, an Idle Timeout strip of five buttons: 30s, 1min, 5min, 10min, Never. The selected timeout is lit blue. The highlighted condition is prefixed with ">".
Controls
| Button | Action |
|---|---|
| Up / Down | Move between conditions; Down from the last condition enters the Idle Timeout strip, Up from the strip returns to the conditions |
| Left / Right | In the Idle Timeout strip, choose the timeout; otherwise does nothing |
| Center | Toggle the highlighted condition on or off; inside the Idle Timeout strip, leaves the strip instead |
| Green | Toggle the highlighted condition on or off, including the last one highlighted if the cursor is currently in the Idle Timeout strip |
| Gray | Next tab (Power State) |
| Yellow | Previous tab (Sleep Config) |
| Blue | Send this configuration |
| Red | Back - see below, it is not a plain exit on this screen |
| Cancel | This help page, on a tap or a hold |
Green always toggles whichever condition was last highlighted, even while the cursor has moved down into the Idle Timeout strip and no condition is shown selected.
Gray and Yellow page through all four Power Management tabs (Power Devices, Sleep Config, Wakeup Conditions, Power State) and wrap at the ends - Gray from Power State goes back to Power Devices, Yellow from Power Devices goes on to Power State.
Sending the configuration
Power Devices, Sleep Config, Wakeup Conditions and Power State are four tabs of one screen with a single Send action. Blue sends the zones and conditions set across Power Devices, Sleep Config and Wakeup Conditions to the power controller, then watches the PIC's status reports for a few seconds and shows "Power config applied" once the sent state is confirmed, or a failure message telling you to power cycle if it never checks in.
Red is Back, but on this screen Back is not a plain exit: if any wake condition is checked, Red sends the same configuration Blue would and then leaves; only if nothing is checked does it leave without sending. Unlike Blue, a Red-triggered send does not wait around for the confirmation - it sends and exits immediately.
Cancel neither sends nor leaves - it opens this page instead, on either a tap or a hold. Earlier firmware caught every Cancel press here to run the same logic as Red, which put the exit on the button the rest of the device uses for help and left this tab (and the other three Power Management tabs) with no way to reach their help topics at all. That is fixed; Cancel is not intercepted here anymore.
Conditions and idle timeout
- ESP - the wireless co-processor requests a wakeup
- IO Change - a change on the general-purpose IO lines
- IMU - motion sensed by the onboard motion sensor
- Light - the onboard light sensor
- WIO GPIO - a signal on the WIO connector's GPIO pin
- Buttons - any physical button press
- UART - activity on the PIC's UART link
- CAN - a frame arriving on the CAN bus
- USB Detect - a USB cable being plugged in or unplugged
Buttons is a floor: at least one condition must be checked before Send, because a configuration with no wake source at all leaves the board asleep until a red hold or a power cycle. Unticking every other condition re-ticks Buttons immediately and the tab shows it checked again - that is the floor doing its job, not a bug. The same floor applies right before the payload is built, so even a Send on a tab nobody touched still goes out with Buttons checked.
Checking ESP, IMU, Light, WIO GPIO, UART or CAN also forces the zone that condition depends on to stay powered during sleep - see Sleep Config.
IMU wake depends on the onboard accelerometer's interrupt line, which earlier firmware never configured: it was left disabled out of reset with no pull anywhere on the net, so the PIC's wake input floated and read whatever noise coupled onto it instead of a real signal - a wake that worked a few times and then quietly stopped. The sensor now drives a real pulsed interrupt on detected motion, so IMU wake keeps working across repeated sleep cycles instead of dying after a few. It fires at the sensor's built-in default motion threshold; if the device wakes itself up while sitting still, that is the generic threshold being sensitive, not a broken condition.
The Idle Timeout strip sets how long the device can sit untouched before it puts itself to sleep on its own, without pressing Send: 30 seconds, 1 minute, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, or Never (the default). With Never selected, the inactivity timer is not armed at all, so the device does not idle-sleep on its own. A timeout other than Never can only be chosen once at least one condition above is checked; with nothing checked, the strip is locked to Never and left and right are ignored while it is highlighted.
Testing a condition
To check that a wakeup condition actually works: check it (and only it, plus Buttons if you want a fallback), press Blue, and wait for "Power config applied". Let the device idle-sleep or send it to sleep some other way, then trigger the condition you checked - press a button, wave a hand over the IMU, cover or uncover the light sensor, plug in USB, and so on - and confirm the screen comes back on.
Power State
A live readout of battery, charger and rail state, read straight from the display CPU's own hardware. No host protocol is involved, so this tab works with nothing plugged into the USB port.
The screen
Eight readings, refreshed about twice a second:
| Row | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Charge | Fuel gauge state of charge, as a percent |
| Current | Fuel gauge average current, in mA - negative while the battery is discharging, positive while it is charging |
| Capacity | Fuel gauge remaining and full-charge capacity, in mAh |
| Battery | Battery voltage measured by the power controller, in mV |
| System | System rail voltage measured by the power controller, in mV |
| VBUS | USB input voltage measured by the power controller, in mV |
| Charger | Charger state (Not charging / Pre-charge / Fast charge / Charged) and charge current, in mA |
| Zones on | How many of the 17 user-controllable power zones are currently switched on |
The three fuel-gauge readings (Charge, Current, Capacity) come from an I2C
device that can fail to answer. A real battery pack never reports a zero
full-charge capacity, so a zero read there is treated as a failed
transaction rather than an actual empty pack: those three rows show --
instead of a number whenever the read fails, rather than a misleading 0.
The Battery, System, VBUS, Charger and Zones on rows come from the power
controller's status cache and the zone state, not the fuel gauge, so they
are unaffected by a fuel-gauge failure.
Zones on counts all 17 user-controllable zones the same way, but zone 9's bit is not a rail - the power controller reports its board-manager LED flag there instead (see Power Devices). Toggling zone 9 changes this count without turning any power rail on or off.
Controls
| Button | Action |
|---|---|
| Gray | Next tab (Power Devices) |
| Yellow | Previous tab (Wakeup Conditions) |
| Blue | Send the configuration set on the other three tabs |
| Red | Back - sends the configuration first if a wakeup condition is already checked, otherwise leaves without sending |
| Cancel | This help page, on a tap or a hold |
This tab has no controls to edit - it only displays readings. Blue and Red behave the same here as on the other three tabs, since Send/Back apply to the whole screen, not to whichever tab happens to be showing. HOME leaves the screen from here, as it does everywhere else in the menu - unlike Red, it exits outright without sending anything first.
Sending the configuration
Power Devices, Sleep Config, Wakeup Conditions and Power State are four tabs of one screen with a single Send action. Blue sends the zones and conditions set across the other three tabs to the power controller, then watches the power controller's status reports for a few seconds and shows "Power config applied" once the sent state is confirmed, or a failure message telling you to power cycle if it never checks in.
Red is Back, but not a plain exit: if a wakeup condition is already checked, Red sends the same configuration Blue would and then leaves right away, without waiting around for the confirmation Blue waits for. Only when no wakeup condition is checked does Red leave without sending anything. Cancel neither sends nor leaves - tap or hold it to reach this page instead.
Sending with none of the nine wakeup conditions checked leaves nothing selected to wake the device back up. See Wakeup Conditions before sending.
The configuration Send transmits lives in RAM only, on both ends of the link - this screen's copy on the display processor and the power controller's own copy of what it last received. Neither is backed by flash, so a display reboot loses whatever was set here and it has to be sent again before it takes effect.
Sleep configured from these tabs is not a full power-down. The power controller's zone-apply routine explicitly skips zone 9 - the display processor's own rail - so it is never switched off by a Power Management send, awake or asleep; the display CPU keeps running through whatever "sleep" gets sent. Battery life during sleep reflects whatever Sleep Config leaves checked, plus the display processor itself staying powered the whole time.
See also: Power Management — the console/GUI commands for this panel.