Benchmarking Homomorphic Encryption on Low-Power Devices: Trade-offs Between PHE and FHE

Benchmarking Homomorphic Encryption on Low-Power Devices: Trade-offs Between PHE and FHE | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Benchmarking Homomorphic Encryption on Low-Power Devices: Trade-offs Between PHE and FHE Het Khatusuriya, Dhvani Patel, Martin Parmar This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-6964665/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Homomorphic Encryption (HE) allows computation on ciphertexts, ensuring strong privacy for applications like smart metering, healthcare, and financial analytics. However, instantiating HE on power-constrained embedded devices is challenging as the computation and memory footprints are excessively high—particularly for Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) schemes like BFV and CKKS. Partly Homomorphic Encryption (PHE) like Paillier is lightweight but less functional. This work evaluates the trade-offs among PHE and FHE with an investigation of Paillier, BFV, and CKKS on three representative platforms: ESP32, Raspberry Pi 4, and Arduino Uno. Performance measures like encryption and decryption time, ciphertext size, memory, and energy are compared. Experimentation demonstrates FHE to be impractical on 8-bit microcontrollers but efficient on 32- and 64-bit platforms. Of interest on Raspberry Pi 4, BFV and CKKS demonstrate sub-10 ms encryption times and consume below 5 J per 100 operations, both outpacing Paillier on speed and energy efficiency. Our work refutes the argument on the impracticability of FHE on embedded devices and provides practical advice on selecting among HE schemes according to platform capability. Our research fills the gap between theoretical cryptography and realistic deployment and promotes the use of HE as an enabling solution to trusted edge computing. Homomorphic encryption Low-Power Devices Partially Homomorphic Encryption (PHE) Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) IoT Security Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-6964665","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":479120874,"identity":"cea6d2e8-e8f5-47ee-9498-09f61154b287","order_by":0,"name":"Het Khatusuriya","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Charotar University of Science and Technology (CHARUSAT)","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Het","middleName":"","lastName":"Khatusuriya","suffix":""},{"id":479120875,"identity":"60374b42-457c-4a0c-ace4-4ee88b849017","order_by":1,"name":"Dhvani Patel","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Charotar University of Science and Technology (CHARUSAT)","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Dhvani","middleName":"","lastName":"Patel","suffix":""},{"id":479120876,"identity":"4f2579b2-946a-46ba-932e-2e10d10588da","order_by":2,"name":"Martin Parmar","email":"data:image/png;base64,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","orcid":"","institution":"Charotar University of Science and Technology (CHARUSAT)","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Martin","middleName":"","lastName":"Parmar","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2025-06-24 10:23:22","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-6964665/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-6964665/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":88340320,"identity":"4c5a5b4b-90ea-4e93-9aec-e90274a18f1e","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-08-05 12:36:34","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":483902,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"BenchmarkingHomomorphicEncryptiononLowPowerDevicesTradeoffsBetweenPHEandFHE.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-6964665/v1_covered_e22a0b5d-a181-439b-8ba0-f24a26487f14.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"Benchmarking Homomorphic Encryption on Low-Power Devices: Trade-offs Between PHE and FHE","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":true,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Homomorphic encryption, Low-Power Devices, Partially Homomorphic Encryption (PHE), Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE), IoT Security","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-6964665/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-6964665/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eHomomorphic Encryption (HE) allows computation on ciphertexts, ensuring strong privacy for applications like smart metering, healthcare, and financial analytics. However, instantiating HE on power-constrained embedded devices is challenging as the computation and memory footprints are excessively high\u0026mdash;particularly for Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) schemes like BFV and CKKS. Partly Homomorphic Encryption (PHE) like Paillier is lightweight but less functional. This work evaluates the trade-offs among PHE and FHE with an investigation of Paillier, BFV, and CKKS on three representative platforms: ESP32, Raspberry Pi 4, and Arduino Uno. Performance measures like encryption and decryption time, ciphertext size, memory, and energy are compared. Experimentation demonstrates FHE to be impractical on 8-bit microcontrollers but efficient on 32- and 64-bit platforms. Of interest on Raspberry Pi 4, BFV and CKKS demonstrate sub-10 ms encryption times and consume below 5 J per 100 operations, both outpacing Paillier on speed and energy efficiency. Our work refutes the argument on the impracticability of FHE on embedded devices and provides practical advice on selecting among HE schemes according to platform capability. 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