Low Power — tdlidar_lowpower

Let the phone’s own Low Power Mode toggle remotely drop your show a quality tier.

Category: Device · Tier: Free · Needs: any iPhone (no special hardware)

What it does

Tells you whether iOS Low Power Mode is on or off as a simple 0/1 switch. When Low Power Mode is active the phone caps performance, so this is a clean remote flag for “the device is in a constrained state — back off.” It also doubles as a deliberate hardware switch: flip Low Power on the phone to signal TouchDesigner to enter an energy-saving look from across the room, no UI needed.

OSC in

| address | type | range | rate | |—|—|—|—| | /tdlidar/device/lowpower | float | 0/1 | on change + 2 Hz |

Outputs

  • out1 (CHOP) — one channel: tdlidar/device/lowpower (0 = off, 1 = on).

Parameters

| par | default | what it does | |—|—|—| | OSC Port | 9000 | UDP port to listen on (match the app) |

Quick start (beginner)

  1. Enable device sensors in the app.
  2. Drop tdlidar_lowpower.
  3. On the phone, toggle Low Power Mode in Settings (or the Control Center battery button) and watch out1 flip between 0 and 1.
  4. Wire out1 into a Switch TOP to swap between a “full” and a “lite” version of your scene.

Advanced patterns

  • Drop a quality tier remotely: use the 0/1 directly as a Switch TOP/SOP index to pick a cheaper render branch, or as a multiplier on instance count / particle birth. One physical toggle on the phone = one remote quality step.
  • Debounce the edge: if you want it to act as a momentary command rather than a held state, feed it into a Trigger CHOP to catch only the rising edge (0→1) and pulse a one-shot action.
  • Combine with thermal: Logic CHOP (OR) this against tdlidar_thermal ≥ 1 so the show degrades when either the phone is hot or in Low Power Mode.
  • Latch a look: route the rising edge into a Count CHOP or a Constant you hold, so toggling Low Power cycles through several presets instead of a single on/off.

Gotchas

  • It is a held state, not a pulse — it stays at 1 the whole time Low Power Mode is on. Use a Trigger CHOP if you need an edge.
  • Float, but only ever 0 or 1; compare with Logic CHOP.
  • Low Power Mode on the phone also throttles the camera/CPU itself, so expect your other TDLiDAR sensors to slow down at the same moment this flips to 1 — that’s the phone, not a bug.