New generation of smart sensor hubs for wearables and other mobile devices

Bosch Sensortec has released the BHI260 and BHA260, the first two products of a new generation of smart sensor hubs. These new products are optimised for 24/7, always-on sensor processing and feature ultra-low power consumption. With the aid of its integrated powerful sensor coprocessor and MEMS sensors, the devices can manage sophisticated sensor processing tasks and data buffering without waking up the main application processor, and can also run completely standalone. Their low power consumption converts into extended battery existence in wearables, hearables, AR/VR devices and smartphones. "Compared to existing hub solutions, our second-generation sensor hubs offer a significant increase in processing power, whilst further reducing power consumption," says Dr. Stefan Finkbeiner, CEO of Bosch Sensortec. "These new sensor hubs are the ideal solution for always-on applications such as fitness tracking, step counting, indoor navigation and gesture recognition. Further members of the family will follow to further expand the already impressive feature set. This will enable manufacturers to noticeably differentiate their products to gain a decisive competitive advantage." To reduce time-to-market and cut design effort for OEMs, the company has created an open development platform for these devices. This comprises a comprehensive integrated software framework in ROM, evaluation kits and an SDK.