Power Consumption of the Raspberry Pi: A Comparative Analysis

Over the past few decades, human beings have increasingly adopted different types of personal computers including desktop computers, laptops, tablets and smart phones. More recently, there has been the emergence of the Raspberry Pi and since its release in 2012, this new type of computer has undergone rapid growth in adoption to even become the fastest selling British computer. The Raspberry Pi has often been referred as a computer designed to change the world since it is capable to do most things that a desktop computer can do. The growing concern is that all these computers utilize power in order to operate thereby turning ICT into a power drainer. The diverse functionalities present in modern computers including communication and web browsing, among others, were found to be important components that affect the power consumption of such devices. As such, this paper investigates how power consumption of the Raspberry Pi is affected by the key functionalities that could be performed by end-users on the platform. Moreover, this relationship is compared against other types of common personal computers before recommending on techniques and practices that could reduce the power consumption of this emerging type of computer.