Seeed Studio
Seeed Studio XIAO nRF52840 Sense microcontroller board
A thumb-sized microcontroller board with onboard IMU and digital microphone for embedded machine learning, Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity, and ultra-low power consumption
- TypeSensors
- Nordic nRF52840 chip with FPU runs up to 64 MHz for responsive embedded processing
- Bluetooth 5.0 and NFC onboard antenna enable wireless connectivity without extra modules
- Ultra-low 5 µA deep-sleep current with BQ25101 charge management extends battery life
- Digital PDM microphone plus 6-axis IMU support on-device TinyML and audio recognition
- 21 x 17.5 mm XIAO form factor fits wearable and space-constrained designs
Versatile Microcontroller
The Seeed Studio XIAO nRF52840 Sense integrates the Nordic nRF52840 chip with FPU running up to 64 MHz. It provides 1 MB flash and 256 kB RAM on-chip plus 2 MB QSPI flash onboard. Eleven digital I/O pins support PWM and six analog I/O pins support ADC. The board is supported by Arduino and CircuitPython environments.
Wireless Capabilities
Bluetooth 5.0 and BLE functions operate through an onboard antenna. NFC connectivity is also available. The USB Type-C interface supplies power and handles code download. UART, IIC and SPI serial ports are all exposed. Deep sleep current is 5 A with battery charge management via the BQ25101 chip.
Embedded Sensors
A PDM digital microphone and 6-axis IMU enable TinyML and TensorFlow Lite applications. The microphone captures real-time audio data for recognition tasks. The IMU supports motion-based machine learning projects. The thumb-sized 21 x 17.5 mm form factor suits wearable devices. Buyers needing more I/O pins or larger memory will find this board constrained.
Highlights
- Nordic nRF52840 chip with FPU runs up to 64 MHz for responsive embedded processing
- Bluetooth 5.0 and NFC onboard antenna enable wireless connectivity without extra modules
- Ultra-low 5 µA deep-sleep current with BQ25101 charge management extends battery life
- Digital PDM microphone plus 6-axis IMU support on-device TinyML and audio recognition
- 21 x 17.5 mm XIAO form factor fits wearable and space-constrained designs
Specifications
| Type | Sensors |
|---|
Questions about this item
Should I pick the version with the onboard microphone and IMU or the base model without them?
The Sense variant adds a PDM digital microphone and a 6-axis IMU for audio and motion sensing; the base model omits these sensors.
What does the 64 MHz clock speed mean for real-world TinyML inference?
The nRF52840 FPU at 64 MHz runs TensorFlow Lite models for keyword spotting or gesture recognition directly on the board.
How does Bluetooth 5.0 limit the data rate when streaming sensor data?
Bluetooth 5.0 caps throughput at 2 Mbps PHY, so continuous IMU or audio streams must fit within that bandwidth.
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