cnlohr
What is the power consumption in sleep mode?
There are different sleep modes in the esp8266, but yes, you can get in the ballpark of that but about everything on the chip will be disabled.
LEDs can be switched of in software or, in case of the power indicator LED desoldered on most ESP8266 modules - not all are the same. I don't know about the UART. Consult the data sheet and schematics for that.
THIS REMINDS ME! I got permission to post a study I did on the sleeping options for the ESP on the esplocalizer! It's really rough and totally not publish ready but here is a link to the google drive and some of the code I used.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-rO-WAvEtVBU1FSOVRKZ3Npc1U
TL;DR:
- Deep sleep on esplocaizer is 0.9mA
- Sleeping, waiting for a GPIO wakeup is 1.8mA
- Disconnected-from-wifi @pvvx light-sleep or as I call it "crazy sleep" where the processor is still running but not very utilized is 3.5-5.5mA depending on work load. Thanks @pvvx you are one awesome dude.
- Wifi on, light sleep ~12mA
- Full bore: 72mA
The real killer for suuuper tiny power consumption on this board is a combination of the regulators, and static uses. I don't actually know how much the LEDs use, but it's not much.
0.9mA is 90 times too much for a battery powered sensor ;) That's the problem with all sensor boards that include a USB UART chip, regulators and leds. You have got to find a way to at least switch off the UART chip when not used.
This board does not include the uart chip on it. USB on here is strictly for power. It's everything else on-board, including the lithium ion charging circuit.