I want to use a RPi 4 in a remote, unattended, battery-powered application. In this application, the RPi 4 will spend most of its time inactive, awakened only by either a Real Time Clock (RTC), or a sensor. Either the RTC or the sensor will wake the RPi from its inactive state, placing it in the active state by pulling down an open-collector/drain switch. Once the RPi has finished its calculations and communicated its results, the software program will return it to the inactive state to await the next signal from the RTC or sensor.

Measurements on the RPi 4 while in poweroff or halt states are in the range of 350mA to 400mA. This is far too much power consumption for a remote, unattended, battery-powered application. In July,2019 I read a post in another forum stating that the power consumption in the RPi 4 could be reduced to "about 3 mA" by invoking the poweroff command. The same post states that this feature is "deliberately undocumented" (at the time it was written), pending reliable scripting to change the EEPROM values required.

As of this writing, more than two years have passed since this information was posted by a presumably reliable source. However, when I place my RPi 4 in poweroff, halt or shutdown it still draws over 370 mA. I am using the default crirical (a.k.a. default) branch of the EEPROM firmware:

$ sudo rpi-eeprom-update -a BOOTLOADER: up-to-date CURRENT: Thu 29 Apr 16:11:25 UTC 2021 (1619712685) ... 

There has been much publicity for reducing RPI 4's power consumption in active mode, but that is of limited benefit for system applications that require only an hour or less of processing each day.

My questions are:

1. Is it possible to realize the claimed current draw of "about 3 mA" in any inactive state?
2. If not, what is the minimum power draw for an inactive state & how is that realized?

I want to use a RPi 4 in a remote, unattended, battery-powered application. In this application, the RPi 4 will spend most of its time inactive, awakened only by either a Real Time Clock (RTC), or a sensor. Either the RTC or the sensor will wake the RPi from its inactive state, placing it in the active state by pulling down an open-collector/drain switch. Once the RPi has finished its calculations and communicated its results, the software program will return it to the inactive state to await the next signal from the RTC or sensor.

Measurements on the RPi 4 while in poweroff or halt states are in the range of 270mA to 400mA. This is far too much power consumption for a remote, unattended, battery-powered application. In July,2019 I read a post in another forum stating that the power consumption in the RPi 4 could be reduced to "about 3 mA" by invoking the poweroff command. The same post states that this feature is "deliberately undocumented" (at the time it was written), pending reliable scripting to change the EEPROM values required.

As of this writing, more than two years have passed since this information was posted by a presumably reliable source. However, when I place my RPi 4 in poweroff, halt or shutdown it still draws over 270 mA. I am using the default crirical (a.k.a. default) branch of the EEPROM firmware:

$ sudo rpi-eeprom-update -a BOOTLOADER: up-to-date CURRENT: Thu 29 Apr 16:11:25 UTC 2021 (1619712685) ... 

There has been much publicity for reducing RPI 4's power consumption in active mode, but that is of limited benefit for system applications that require only an hour or less of processing each day.

My questions are:

1. Is it possible to realize the claimed current draw of "about 3 mA" in any inactive state?
2. If not, what is the minimum power draw for an inactive state & how is that realized?

I want to use a RPi 4 in a remote, unattended, battery-powered application. In this application, the RPi 4 will spend most of its time inactive, awakened only by either a Real Time Clock (RTC), or a sensor. Either the RTC or the sensor will wake the RPi from its inactive state, placing it in the active state by pulling down an open-collector/drain switch. Once the RPi has finished its calculations and communicated its results, the software program will return it to the inactive state to await the next signal from the RTC or sensor.

Measurements on the RPi 4 while in poweroff or halt states are in the range of 350mA to 400mA. This is far too much power consumption for a remote, unattended, battery-powered application. Approximately a year ago I read a post in another forum stating that the power consumption in the RPi 4 could be reduced to "about 3 mA" by invoking the poweroff command. The same post states that this feature is "deliberately undocumented" (at the time it was written), pending reliable scripting to change the EEPROM values required.

As of this writing, more than a year has passed since this information was posted - presumably by a reliable source. There has been much publicity for reducing RPI 4's power consumption in active mode. However, when I place my RPi 4 in poweroff, halt or shutdown it still draws over 350 mA - a bit more if I leave the RPi 4 connected to a nearby Ethernet switch. I seem to have the current EEPROM firmware installed.

$ sudo rpi-eeprom-update -a reports: BOOTLOADER: up-to-date

My questions are:

1. Is it possible to realize the claimed current draw of "about 3 mA" in any inactive state?
2. If not, what is the minimum power draw for an inactive state & how is that realized?

I want to use a RPi 4 in a remote, unattended, battery-powered application. In this application, the RPi 4 will spend most of its time inactive, awakened only by either a Real Time Clock (RTC), or a sensor. Either the RTC or the sensor will wake the RPi from its inactive state, placing it in the active state by pulling down an open-collector/drain switch. Once the RPi has finished its calculations and communicated its results, the software program will return it to the inactive state to await the next signal from the RTC or sensor.

Measurements on the RPi 4 while in poweroff or halt states are in the range of 350mA to 400mA. This is far too much power consumption for a remote, unattended, battery-powered application. In July,2019 I read a post in another forum stating that the power consumption in the RPi 4 could be reduced to "about 3 mA" by invoking the poweroff command. The same post states that this feature is "deliberately undocumented" (at the time it was written), pending reliable scripting to change the EEPROM values required.

As of this writing, more than two years have passed since this information was posted by a presumably reliable source. However, when I place my RPi 4 in poweroff, halt or shutdown it still draws over 370 mA. I am using the default crirical (a.k.a. default) branch of the EEPROM firmware:

$ sudo rpi-eeprom-update -a BOOTLOADER: up-to-date CURRENT: Thu 29 Apr 16:11:25 UTC 2021 (1619712685) ... 

There has been much publicity for reducing RPI 4's power consumption in active mode, but that is of limited benefit for system applications that require only an hour or less of processing each day.

My questions are:

1. Is it possible to realize the claimed current draw of "about 3 mA" in any inactive state?
2. If not, what is the minimum power draw for an inactive state & how is that realized?