In our remote application, we use a TRB140 4G (LTE) gateway with TRB1_R_00.07.04.3 firmware, powered by a 12V lead-acid battery.
The standard current consumption for this type of device is low, but I wonder if it can be further reduced.
The TBR140 doesn’t have a standby mode, but it does have a many options that can probably be turned off to save power.
I mean turning off the network type and signal strength indicator LEDs, for example, perhaps using a script, turning off the LAN port via SMS, etc.
I want to remotely, e.g. SMS, but manually or automatically at a certain time, control the work of the TRB140 so that it consumes as little energy as possible, when it is not used to transfer data from a LAN device through a VPN tunnel.
First of all, you can start by deactivating the LEDs via the System → Administration → General.
Because the TRB140 device relies on mobile connectivity in your case and doesn’t have WiFi, there are limited options for reducing power consumption significantly. While you can disable certain services based on your requirements, this will likely only result in a small reduction in power use.
However, if you want to, then one of the potential approaches to conserve power involves the use of two separate scripts. One script activates the necessary services, while the other deactivates them. By utilizing UCI commands and service control commands like ‘/etc/init.d/ stop (/etc/init.d/openvpn stop, for example)’, these scripts would emulate the ‘sleep’ and ‘wake’ functions of the device, deactivating services when they are not in use and reactivating them when needed.
You can then trigger these scripts in two main ways:
By sending SMS messages: You can set up a rule that will execute a script when a specific SMS message is received.
Using a crontab: This will allow you to schedule and automate the execution of the scripts at certain times or intervals.
These methods can be used independently or in combination, based on your specific requirements.