The Qoitech Blog

All about energy optimization of electronics and IoT, battery life and long-lived products. Learn about out company, products and use cases. See how companies worldwide are saving development time and many and delivering sustainable products and businesses.

Product features

Offline license for Otii Ace Pro

New Otii software release allows for offline license for power measurements and analysis with limited or no access to internet.

Qoitech at Embedded World 2023

New product and software releases when Qoitech and partners demos at Embedded World 2023 in Germany.

Qoitech welcomes Latour as a new shareholder

Qoitech AB welcomes a new investor and shareholder Investment AB Latour (publ), which through its subsidiary Latour Future Solutions AB becomes a new minority shareholder in the company.

Qoitech on Ny Teknik’s 33-list

We are humbled and happy to be acknowledged as one of the 33 best and most innovative tech companies in Sweden in Ny Teknik’s prestigious 33-list.

Can I power my device with an energy harvester?

Taking advantage of ambient power sources like heat, motion or light can be very useful when you’re looking for an alternative to non-renewable sources aka batteries. But is it enough to power your device? And, how would you calculate that?

How much of the battery capacity is actually used?

Unused battery capacity is hidden waste that goes unnoticed for consumer electronics, but it is getting noticeably annoying for the businesses within the Internet of Things (IoT) and medical space.

Solar energy for your IoT device

The goal of evaluating solar energy harvesting as potential energy source is to understand if its economics are better than if the device is battery-powered.

Qoitech’s Otii Arc now in stock at Mouser bringing automated testing to the next level

Lund, Sweden, Nov 17th, 2021 – Qoitech is happy to announce that US distributor Mouser is now reselling Otii Arc and thereby paving the way for automated testing in the development of battery-driven devices.

Automating power measurements using C#

The real power of a developer tool is the ability to automatize repetitive tasks. With the Otii Automation Toolbox you can automate using C#.

Otii Arc now available at SparkFun

We are happy to announce that our customer Sparkfun is now reselling Otii Arc!

How do IoT protocols affect a device’s energy consumption?

We took a look at communications layers in the IoT stack, how the actual data can be transmitted, and examined the differences in power consumption when using different IoT protocols.

How do NB-IoT network registration and coverage affect an IoT device’s power consumption?

Cellular LPWAN technologies come with many benefits, especially when it comes to power consumption. As with any other connectivity technology, one must be aware of what can affect device’s battery life from the ecosystem perspective, and understand the potential trade-offs.

How much energy does UART communication drain from your ultra-low-power IoT device?

Optimizing designs for ultra-low power has become one of the top challenges in battery-driven devices both on hardware and software level. But does UART communication really drain energy from your ultra-low-power IoT device?

Not a software problem…

It must be admitted that for some types of SW development, the statement that energy consumption is not a SW problem is true.

P-channel MOSFET (PFET) as a load switch – datasheet vs measurements

If you want to use a p-channel MOSFET (PFET) as a load switch for your battery-powered device, you want to be aware of how the battery behaves for your device.

Yamori use case: Murata’s and Sentinum’s newest LPWAN dev kit power-optimized with Otii and ready for the market

Yamori, an embedded platform from Murata and Sentinum, offers a holistic system simplifying the entry and implementation of IoT solutions on LPWAN standards. Energy-optimized with Otii it is now ready for the market.

DIY Water Level Indicator – Part 2: Improving battery life up to 40 times

A sea level measurement station is a good example of an IoT use case of monitoring at remote locations, where requirements on the internet accessibility and long battery life are high.

Qoitech joins LoRa Alliance® to further strengthen the low power design of LoRaWAN® devices

Swedish company Qoitech announced that it joined the LoRa Alliance® to collaborate in further delivering energy-optimized LoRaWAN® IoT devices.

How accurate is your low current measurement?

When it comes to test instruments for current measurement, you should always be able to find information about how accurate the measurements will be. We’ll compare Otii Arc to other measurement instruments.

The low-power mindset in the development of IoT devices

You can’t stress it often enough: a low-power mindset is the key when developing IoT devices. But how do you practice it?

Our workshop at The Things Conference 2021 – “Select the right power source for your LoRa node in 3 steps”

Selecting the right battery for your LoRa node can be quite complicated. Together with Saft we are discussing three steps on how to find the right battery.

Otii Review: Super Low Electrical Energy Meter || DIY or Buy || Is measuring µA/nA possible the DIY way?

It’s time again for one of Great Scott’s famous “DIY or Buy” episodes. This time with our Otii Arc playing the leading role.

IRNAS use case: Deploying IoT devices in remote environments brings requirement on battery longevity to a new level

There are cases and fields of application where you just need something more specialized and tailored than a product off the rack. IRNAS makes use of Otii Arc to create specialized high-tech solutions.

Automatic switching between a debugger and power measurements

Automate power consumption measurements. Use a switch board for automatic switching off/on the debugger or USB connection to your device under test.

How to avoid high current peak draining the coin cell battery life?

Our Head of Product Development, Björn, has just published an article on DesignSpark about whether it is actually possible to avoid the typical high peak current issues with coin cell batteries by using a capacitor.

Qoitech at the Virtual The Things Conference 2021

Qoitech and Saft teaming up for this year’s Virtual The Things Conference 2021!

How to estimate the battery life of the product you are developing?

Probably for a good reason we tend to turn towards the quickest yet most basic estimations. But we all know that it’s not good enough. Picking the right method of estimating battery life is crucial!

Energy benchmark platform for mobile apps

Imperial College London student Leszek made use of Energio & Otii to benchmark applications Reddit, BaconReader, RedReader & Relay for Android.

Otii in Use: How to Make a Better Hand Sanitizer with Arduino!

Probably now more relevant than ever, Kevin Darrah conducted a fun project to improve a super cheap soap dispenser to be used with hand sanitizer.

Otii in Use: Lowest Power (~3uA) MOTION Sensor – WiFi Connected with trigBoard

Kevin Darrah couldn’t believe how low the standby current of his PIR sensor was and had to make a video about it – comparing the AM312 based sensor at ~13uA total, the Panasonic EKMB1201111 shown in the video here totals up to ~3uA, which includes the trigBoard.

The Qoitech e-commerce store is here!

We’re very excited to announce that we just launched the Qoitech e-commerce store for you to get your Otii toolboxes within just a few clicks.

Explained: Sigfox transmissions and power consumption using Murata CMW1ZZABZ and StickTrackr

We have asked Otii user and IoT maker Paul Pinault to share his insights and knowledge about Sigfox transmission and what to expect when looking at its power consumption.

[Swedish] Tre metoder för att maximera batterilivstiden i IoT-produkter

Vi känner alla till det faktum att batterilivslängden är avgörande när det kommer till att skörda framgångarna av Internet of Things (IoT). Här kommer de tre främsta tillvägagångssätten för att maximera batteriets livslängd.

Tapping into the low power consumption of cellular LPWAN technologies (NB-IoT and LTE-M)

Get to know how to set power saving modes of NB-IoT and LTE-M and how the measure the power consumption.

Teaming up with Thales for the low power 5G NB-IoT developer starter kit at Digikey

We’ve combined Thales’ ENS22-E NB-IOT with our Otii Arc and created the 5G NB-IoT Low-Power Cellular Developer Starter Kit

The new Toolboxes – Introducing the Otii Automation and Otii Log Toolboxes

With our Otii Arc, we have laid the foundation for the purpose and vision that we have and aim now to elevate and complement the instrument with the just-released Otii Software Toolboxes.

Otii in Use: Sleep Mode breaks on cheap Pro-Mini? Testing ATMEGA328 – is it counterfeit?

Kevin Darrah is back with another video about a possible counterfeit. To see what was going on there Kevin of course, uses Otii to investigate.

Try out the Otii desktop app before your Otii Arc purchase!

In our latest software release 2.6.3 of the Otii desktop, we have implemented a simulator of current and voltage measurements as well as debug logs. This means that you can now test the Otii app on your desktop without having Otii Arc connected.

Analyzing power consumption of cellular IoT devices with Otii and a network simulator

Peter Macejko, a Wireless Specialist at Anritsu, paired Otii Arc with a network simulator MT8821C to analyze the power consumption of cellular IoT systems.

Sensefarm use case: Giving Sensefarm its Power back

Using Otii Arc and the Otii Battery Toolbox, agtech startup Sensefarm was able to eliminate the underlying cause of the frequent battery failure.

Otii in Use: ESP32 Secrets: Interrupts, and Deep-Sleep under the Hood

Andreas Spiess diggs into the topic of speedy reactions and deep sleep and looks under hood of the ESP32 promising to uncover some secrets. And of course, he will use his Otii Arc for measuring the power consumption of the devices in testing.

3 best practices for long battery life of IoT

In this video, Vanja shares 3 best practices that will help your team feel confident about building a great IoT product.

Battery benchmark – Will my LoRaWAN IoT device work with a coin cell battery?

With LoRaWAN being one of the most popular IoT connectivity standards, it is interesting to understand what kind of batteries work using this technology.

Otii in Use: Otii – Optimise IoT & Wearable Power Consumption

Clemens from Elektor gives our Otii a try using a BBC micro:bit board with a BME280 weather data sensor running Arduino-based MySensors IoT networking software.

Otii in Use: Building a device that can run for years on small batteries – Eivind Holt

As part of the The Things Conference 2020, Eiving Holt held a workshop on utilizing new possibilities that challenge how to build devices that can run for as long as possible without changing energy source.

How to minimize the noise in your Otii measurements

To make sure your measurements are done in the best possible way, focus on minimizing noise in your everyday Otii measurements.

Know your IoT device, know your battery!

Check out a few best practices on how to optimize your energy profile from our keynote at The Things Conference 2020!

Otii added to Deutsche Telekom’s Swiss army knife for IoT applications

We’re thrilled to announce our partnership with Deutsche Telekom.

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