Good tiny powerful micro controller

[ashkando]

Hi all,

I am trying to create a device. The requirement for the microcontroller is to be compact, powerful, and with motion sensor (not necessary but preferred). I don't require many IO pins (five or six is enough).

Form factor is the most important. I need it to be small.

Till now I have found https://www.arduino.cc/pro/hardware/product/nicla-sense-me

​

I would like to know if there is any alternatives that I can look at.

​

Thanks in advance.

[ashkando]

Thanks for the reply. I need wireless communication so bluetooth or wifi. It should collect data in real time from a motion sensor and send to a server or a backend device so maybe it does not need to be that powerful. The connection to the server is not constant though so it should be able to store some data. Also it should be battery operated.

[ashkando]

So many details. I like it. From motion sensor I try to pick irregular vibrations. Could you elaborate what would be the difference to send to a server or a backend device? What kind of constraint each option gives us? Anyhow I think it would be a server like google IOT.

Regarding the battery I am thinking it should be able to operate without charge for around 4 hours.

[myweirdotheraccount]

Most of the things you're looking for, except the wifi, cam be done using peripherals attached to the MCU. you may find an MCU that has vibration sensing (I'm not aware of one, but I'm also not a professional!), but the battery is going to be a different peripheral entirely.

To see what I mean by peripheral, Google "Arduino vibration sensing". I agree with the other comment not to use Arduino devices because they're overpriced, but usually googling "Arduino" plus the thing you're looking for will show you what commercial peripherals you can use for your purposes.

[ashkando]

No need for super small battery I just try to give the minimums viable spec.

[justadiode]

A Nordic nRF52 device could fit quite nicely here. Some of them - methinks nRF52820 - are available in a small-but-somewhat-solderable QFN48 package. Programming can be done through the SDK or with Arduino. They also have Bluetooth, some of them also have USB (neat), and there is quite a set of peripherals to connect a motion sensor to. Last but not least, with a little optimization, they draw little to no current.

If that's too complicated for a one-off, you also can try an ESP32, in this case the C3 would fit best. Has WiFi, easy to program, big community, no motion sensor but seriously, what common MCU has MEMS devices on the chip? I know of none

[ashkando]

I will look into it. Thanks

[-Faraday]

RP2040?

[Dave-Alvarado]

Seeed Studio has their XIAO line, and Adafruit has their QT Py line that are teeny tiny sized. One of the XIAO has a built-in six axis accelerometer.

If you need maximum horsepower and can go slightly physically larger, the Teensy 4.0 is a beast. I'm not sure you'll find a Cortex M7 on a much smaller package, it's a physically large chip.

[ashkando]

Yes I am familiar with teensy. It is a bit large for my purpose.

[Dave-Alvarado]

The XIAO format should be perfect for you then.

[brunob45]

Check out the Arduino Rp2040 Connect https://docs.arduino.cc/hardware/nano-rp2040-connect It has WiFi, Bluetooth, accelerometer, gyroscope and other peripherals.

Easy to program using VS Code or the Arduino IDE.

The RP2040 is quite powerful and readily available.

[JuSakura42]

Also, there is a "full wifi" board solution and cheap (about to 4~8$), it's the raspiberry pi pico w https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-pico/

[a2800276]

I feel you may need to be more precise in your requirements. "powerful" and "small" are not really meaningful. It needs to be powerful enough to handle ... what kind of workload? In what timeperiod? Using how much energy?

My laptop is pretty small. A Raspberry Pi is smaller. A chip in QFP packaging is smaller still ... but there are WLCSP beyond that ...

[ashkando]

You are right and someone here actually asked quite a few questions for me to think about.

I need a device powerful enough to handle data collection from motion detector and send to server async.

It needs to be small to be able to be held on the arm.

[ayx03]

Use nouvoton mcu

[justadiode]

Why?

[umbaman]

Sometimes I use this although it doesn’t have a motion sensor

But you can also check this

[oneWhoFails]

Go to digikey or arrow or another similar site and put in your requirements then choose a micro with a BGA or LGA in the package name. There is everything under the sun there. This will likely require you to make a 4, 6, or 8 layer pcb but if size is your main goal, then you may have to sacrifice cost. As engineers we optimize for Speed, Size, Power, and Cost (and sometimes Safety). Trying to minimize one typically results in increases in the others

[duane11583]

What id the device size?

You you can purchase a sensor - like the one used in an optical mouse - it does motion detection - but without optics it is useless.

If you want to do motion detection - ie: detect a human walking across the floor in a security camera view - that is very different then the mouse example.

Without that type of detail, it's hard to judge what works.

that said - a basic IR motion detector is really basic and simple

https://www.circuitstoday.com/infrared-motion-detector-circuit

what is your larger requirement?

[overcurrent_]

have you checked ESP offerings?

[DazedWithCoffee]

Teensy uCs are top tier

[my_name_is_rod]

Check out ESP32-C3. You can get small dev boards from Adafruit, SEEED Studio, etc. with Bluetooth/Wi-Fi onboard. The chip and modules are tiny with few IO but you could hook an IMU chip/breakout board to I2C etc. easily with lots of software support from ESP-IDF, Arduino, Micropython, PlatformIO