6
Low-Power Arduino
It is fair to say that, without taking any special measures, an Arduino really does not use a lot of power. Typically, an Arduino Uno draws about 40 mA, which, when powered from USB at 5V, amounts to just 200 mW. That means it can happily run on a small 9V battery (150 mAh) for perhaps four hours.
Current consumption becomes important when the Arduino is being run for long periods of time using batteries, such as in remote monitoring or control situations in which batteries or solar are the only option. For instance, I recently made an Arduino-based automatic hen-house door, using a small solar panel to charge the battery so it had enough juice to open and close the door twice a day.
Power Consumption of Arduino Boards
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