Nordic Thingy:53 motion sensors

The Nordic Thingy:53™ includes a low-power 3-axis accelerometer (U8), 6-axis IMU (U7) combining accelerometer and gyroscope, and 3-axis magnetometer (U12).

When the Nordic Thingy:53 is in low-power sleep mode, any user interaction is detected by the low-power accelerometer. The accelerometer can be used to generate a General-Purpose Input/Output (GPIO) interrupt that wakes up the device. It has an Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI), and it can detect motion on three axes.

Note: Only the ADXL_INT1 pin is connected to the nRF5340 System on Chip (SoC).

The following schematics describe the low-power accelerometer.

Figure 1. Low-power accelerometer Thingy:53 v0.8.0 and v1.0.0

Figure 2. Low-power accelerometer on Thingy:53 v1.1.0

The 6-axis IMU has an SPI, and it can be used for more advanced motion sensing applications. The IMU can generate a GPIO interrupt when sensor data is ready.

Note: Only the BMI270_INT1 pin is connected to the nRF5340 SoC.

The following schematic describes the IMU.

Figure 3. IMU

The magnetometer can be used to detect magnetic fields around the Nordic Thingy:53. It can be used as a standalone device or with the 6-axis IMU. The magnetometer has an Inter-integrated Circuit (I2C) interface, and it can generate a GPIO interrupt when magnetometer sensor data is ready.

Note: Only the BMM150_INT1 pin is connected to the nRF5340 SoC.

The magnetometer can be connected to the auxiliary I²C bus of the 6-axis IMU to ensure that the data sampling is synchronized. This means that the magnetometer data is sampled at the same time as the accelerometer and gyroscope data. This can be important especially for sensor fusion applications. To connect the magnetometer to the auxiliary I²C bus of the IMU, you must cut SB1 and SB2 and solder SB3 and SB4.

The following schematic describes the magnetometer.

Figure 4. Magnetometer

Motion sensors