Ultra-low-power smart IMU for wearables for wearables, hearables and AR/VR applications

Mouser now stocks the BMI270 smart inertial measurement unit (IMU) from Bosch. The ultra-low-power IMU provides strongly improved accelerometer offset and sensitivity performance based on the company's MEMS process technology. Especially targeted to hearables, wearables, and AR/VR applications, the device comprises intuitive gesture, context, and activity recognition with an integrated plug-and-play step counter.

The IMU includes a 16-bit triaxial gyroscope and 16-bit triaxial accelerometer in two application-specific versions. The 'gesture' version, created for Wear OS by Google, enables users to navigate the device employing wrist gestures such as flick in/out, arm up/down, and wrist tilt. The 'context and activity' version has advanced features for identifying context-activity and activity change such as walking, standing, and being in a vehicle. The IMU provides the industry’s first self-calibrating gyroscope employing the company's unique and motionless CRT feature, which offsets for MEMS soldering drifts and saves OEMs time and costs throughout testing and manufacturing.

The device increases system b attery life by managing multiple activity tracking, step counting, and gesture recognition functions separately from the main system processor, without needing to wake it up. These processor-independent functions incorporate tasks such as sending an interrupt when a specified number of steps is reached, or geofencing to activate GPS when the user stands and starts walking. Through the device’s intelligent power management system, powerful and accurate gesture and activity recognition features run in the ultra-low-power domain, with a current consumption of just 30μA.

The 2.5mm x 3mm x 0.8mm device is pin-to-pin compatible with the company's BMI160, BMI260, BMI261, and BMI263 IMUs, simplifying drop-in replacement in existing designs.