IoT Device Development Workbench: Hardware Selection & Power Budget

Compute (MCU)

Radio

Duty Cycle

Sample / report interval 60 s

Battery

Capacity 1000 mAh

Power Budget

Avg current draw

— mA

Active duty cycle

— %

Est. battery life

— days

Radio range

—

Est. bill of materials (MCU + radio)

— USD

How it works

Every battery-powered IoT device spends almost all of its life asleep, waking briefly to sample and transmit. The average current draw over one interval is the time-weighted mix of the two states:

I_avg = (I_active·t_active + I_sleep·t_sleep) / t_interval
t_active = t_wake + t_sensor + t_tx   (MCU wake + sensor read + radio transmit)
t_sleep  = t_interval − t_active
Battery life (h) = Capacity(mAh) / I_avg(mA)

MCU tier sets the sleep-current floor (nA–µA range) and the active current while awake. Radio choice sets the transmit current, the transmit time, and the physical range: BLE and Wi-Fi are cheap and fast but short-range; LoRa and NB-IoT trade a slower, hungrier radio for kilometres of reach. Shortening the sample interval raises the duty cycle almost linearly and can shrink battery life from years to days — the central trade-off in real IoT hardware selection.

MCU / Radio — swap the compute and connectivity tier; the 3D board updates and re-lights.
Interval slider — how often the device wakes to sample and report (log-scaled, 2 s – 24 h).
Battery slider — pack capacity from a coin cell to a power bank; the gauge on the board drains at the simulated rate (time-compressed so you can watch it happen).
Ring bars — one compressed duty-cycle period: mostly low sleep-current bars with a tall spike where the device wakes and transmits.

MCU Radio / antenna Sensor Battery gauge

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