As a system, I want to monitor and report the remaining battery life so that I can alert volunteers when battery levels are low.

[digitalwaters-jason]

Description:

To ensure the longevity and reliability of our water monitoring devices, the system needs to monitor the remaining battery life. This information will be used to notify volunteers when the battery levels are critically low, allowing them to take timely action to maintain the devices.

Key tasks include:

1. Battery Monitoring Function: Develop a function that accurately measures the remaining battery life and returns a value between 1 and 100. The value will represent the battery percentage, where 100 indicates full charge and 1 indicates near depletion.
2. Hardware Requirements: Investigate and confirm any additional hardware requirements needed to measure battery life accurately. This may involve selecting sensors or components that can interface with the Raspberry Pi.
3. Battery Options: Research and recommend better battery options that could simplify the monitoring process and extend device operation time.

Acceptance Criteria:

• The system can accurately measure and report the remaining battery life of the device.
• The battery percentage is returned as an integer between 1 and 100, with 100 representing full charge and 1 representing nearly empty.
• Hardware requirements for battery monitoring are identified and documented.
• Alternative battery options are evaluated, and a recommendation is provided based on ease of monitoring and operational efficiency.
• The function must be tested and validated to ensure accurate and consistent battery life reporting under different conditions.

[digitalwaters-jason]

As we now know our devices are completely offline while underwater until we get an external antenna going, understanding our power consumption is increasingly important. At this stage in development, we need to start tracking what our power consumption is like.

[digitalwaters-jason]

It looks like we'll need to pick a specific brand of USB battery that gives us the ability to determine the remaining capacity. Otherwise we'll need to experiment to figure out a solution that might work for us.