Dear Spark Core
Greetings…
We are from India, We are trying to use spark core for serious industrial application , the case is to use in cattle farms/fish ponds to constantly monitor some parameters like temperature , Humidity, O2 and Ammonia etc … We piloted this Core with basic Temp/Humid sensor , at our lab and , the biggest issue is , battery life, the fully charged 5V, 2200mA bettery lost for 5 hours( we are sending the JSON message ( 200 bytes max) to our server for every 5 sec) This is fine if I use the board on mains, But the case where I attach the device to animal or remote is an issue…
Any idea or design guide to save the power consumption , other than keeping it sleeping mode…
And the cc3000 is getting headed up over the period. Can I use spark core for longer duration at a stretch (say …3 Yrs). Do you have any benchmark on this…
Just a wild thought , Is there any to switch off the Core’s LED ( I know the Core lost its beauty 
) which can save some power …
Thank You
Siva
1.) You will be able to switch off the led.
Take a look at the docs:
http://docs.spark.io/firmware/#libraries-rgb
2.) For devices sending so frequently at 5 seconds, it’s hard to be low powered; at least if you are using Wifi.
I’m not experienced in this but I believe that’s the power consumption for Wifi on average during continuous use.
You can consider to datalog on the core and post it every hour maybe?
3.) I don’t think the CC3000 is manufactured for 3 years already so it’s hard to have some sort of benchmark.
But I believe it should be robust enough for that matter!
@will might have something more to share on this topic. 
@spaksiva, I’ve found the heat too much for really long usage (especially in 
India).
Perhaps you can reduce some heat by adding some capacitors to the power supply. @mohit suggested using a 22uF cap ([http://community.spark.io/t/heat-from-spark-core-and-relay-shield/4362/10][1]).
I haven’t used it for a very serious application yet, although I might do so soon, but I found this helpful.
You can try switching off the LED as well as disconnecting the Core from the Cloud since you’re using a private server. I have a hunch that it might save a bit more power 
.
You have a completely private server, correct? Could you tell me how you’re communicating with it? I was having a little trouble with that recently.
Thanks!
[1]: http://community.spark.io/t/heat-from-spark-core-and-relay-shield/4362/10
Thank you for sharing your thoughts…they are useful…
I am using my private server for data post only, the programming and all from the spark cloud as usual,
I just framed HTTP GET JSON message , I have a listener at my server side, It is working fine, You should be care to frame the message , including white spaces and returns…
Depending on the way you want to use the data, collect and store on the core itself and then I’d put triggers (Near Field Comm’s?) at certain points in the farm.
Every time cattle passes such trigger, the core sends out Data that it collected.
Can imagine such points being where food is available, where they drink, etc.
Apart from that, if data has not been sent for X amount of time, make it to send without receiving the trigger.
Curious to more info on your project…
Cheers,
Luc