Where WDT Reset Timer is a constant describing the time before the watchdog resets. To enable it, we use the function: wdt_enable(WDT Reset Timer) The watchdog timer is normally disabled in an Arduino sketch.

You can also configure the watchdog timer to trigger an interrupt when it overflows. If ever something happens and the loop is not completed, the watchdog timer starts to run and resets the microprocessor. In a program, the watchdog timer resets for every completed main loop. This means it is unaffected by any external oscillators (recall that Arduino UNO’s have a 16 MHz oscillator) and thus by the instruction cycle. In Arduino, specifically on ATMega micro’s, the watchdog timer runs on an internal 1 MHz oscillator. But what if we can’t press that button? You can reset the Arduino via software using the watchdog timer.Ī watchdog timer is an internal timer whose primary purpose is to “watch” the operation of the microcontroller. Now what if while inside the loop(), something went wrong either in code or in hardware? Normally we just press the reset button. Any code inside setup() executes once while code inside loop() executes again and again until the next reset.

In Arduino programming, we learn about functions setup() and loop().

Arduino wire library set timeout