Sofar’s durable Spotter buoy platform is designed to withstand harsh ocean conditions. From aquaculture operations in Norway to sea-ice interaction research in the Arctic, customers around the world trust Spotter to collect and transmit ocean data in the most extreme environments.
A key component of Spotter’s durability is its longevity. Many customers use their Spotters, which are powered by lithium-ion batteries and solar panels, for multi-year deployments. Longer deployment windows enable more data collection and minimize the operational costs of retrieving or manually recharging a Spotter.
Our team is always looking for innovative ways to increase Spotter’s battery life and keep it in the water for as long as possible. GPS Sleep is a new feature that enables customers to increase their Spotter’s battery life today. GPS Sleep turns off Spotter’s GPS sensor during sampling dwell periods, increasing its battery life by at least 25% and significantly extending the duration of its deployment at high latitudes.
Below, we discuss GPS Sleep in-depth, highlighting the customers that will benefit from it the most and detailing how to equip your Spotter with the feature.
Extended battery life is crucial for Spotters deployed in sun-starved locations
Extended battery life is valuable for all Spotter users, but it is particularly critical for customers collecting ocean data in sun-starved locations. In these environments, which include countries in the high latitudes, low-light areas, and foggy regions, Spotter’s solar panels naturally generate less power, reducing the lifespan of the device’s lithium-ion battery. A Spotter configured with standard data collection settings — Waves:Standard mode with a 60-minute update rate — will typically last through winter at 55 degrees of latitude without being manually recharged. Any Spotter that loses power will turn back on once exposed to ample sunlight.
15% of Spotter customers deploy in sun-starved environments, a percentage that we expect to increase as the maritime industry and research community continue to push ocean data collection to the extremes. The truncated cycle of installation and retrieval that these customers experience due to power limitations raises the stakes of each deployment, greatly increasing the value of time saved between recharges.
Using GPS Sleep to save power during sampling dwell periods
GPS Sleep extends Spotter’s battery life by capitalizing on sampling dwell periods. When a Spotter’s sampling rate (how frequently it collects data) is shorter than its update rate (how frequently it transmits that data), a dwell period exists between sampling events. For example, if a customer configures their Spotter to collect data in Waves:Standard mode with a 30-minute sampling rate and a 60-minute update rate, there will be a 30-minute sampling dwell period. During this dwell period, Spotter does not collect wave data and does not perform spectral analysis. This minimizes the importance of Spotter’s GPS sensor, which collects location data that is central to the device’s wave and wind measurements.
Historically, Spotter’s GPS sensor, which comprises a large portion of the device’s overall energy budget, collected location data without interruption. GPS Sleep corrects this inefficiency by turning off Spotter’s GPS sensor during sampling dwell periods. This reduces Spotter’s power consumption and has a significant impact on battery life:
- Depending on the mode Spotter is in and the length of its sampling dwell period, GPS Sleep can increase battery life by as much as 69%.
- These power savings enable year-round Spotter deployments in high-latitude areas and extend continuous operation limits in winter by up to ten degrees of latitude.
Photo credit: Ryo Kusakawa, University of Tokyo
How to enable Spotter’s GPS Sleep feature
To enable GPS Sleep, customers must update their Spotter’s firmware and configure a sampling dwell period. To do so, please contact us at support@sofarocean.com. We will also share additional power-saving strategies to use in conjunction with GPS Sleep.
To learn more about Spotter, please schedule a demo with our team by filling out this short form.
