Measuring micro amps, the easiest way

You can build yours (see my former review), but you can buy them already made: these $10 sub micro ampmeters on ebay work pretty well from 50mA down to 0.001mA. This range matches nicely the currents of many sensors, including when they are in deep sleep mode. This range is very convenient for IoT autonomous projects and sensors, and the 5 digits makes it unnecessary to switch between milliamperes and microamperes like on a multimeter.

You lose one digit when plugged backwards. The feature is not really interesting except that it makes it safer (you will not burn it by accident).

$10 for these micro current meters is a bargain!

They really are straightforward to use, and they do measure very low currents: the display goes as low as 0.001 mA, ie. 1µA, but I am not sure it is reliable at that level -- anyhow, below a few micro amps, the self-discharge rate of a battery usually becomes not negligible, so there is often no point in fighting further to reduce the sleeping currents. A CR2032 coin cell can run for years at this level, so you would better start optimizing also the wake-up consumption (make sure to read this impressive in-depth review on the matter!).

increment a C float until it fails: maximum value is about 16,777,216

Higher limit of an incremented float in C

So I finally made it clear. The first increment that has no effect on a C ''float'' variable is around +16,777,216. So four-byte wise, a float still fails later than what I thought compared to a ''uint32_t''.