ScioSense, the industry leader in environmental and high-precision flow and time-measurement sensor chips, announced the introduction of ENS161, a low-power, multi-gas sensor that enables continuous air quality monitoring in wearable and portable devices powered only by small batteries. ENS161's new low-power mode allows its heated metal oxide (MOX) sensing unit to operate at an average current of 700μA, reducing power consumption by up to 30 times compared to sensors that require constant heating of the sensing element.
ENS161 comes in an LGA package with a size of 3mm x 3mm and a thickness of 0.9mm. It is highly immune to the effects of humidity or ozone. The chip includes a high-performance ASIC that converts raw gas measurements into calculated exponential parameters and a variety of widely used air quality signals, which helps save system power in the end product because the main processor does not need to perform complex algorithmic conversions.
While maintaining high performance and application flexibility, ScioSense significantly reduces the power consumption of the ENS161. In low power mode, ENS161 operates at a voltage of 1.8V, a sampling rate of 1 time per minute, and an average current of only 700μA. This means that air quality monitoring could be offered as a new selling point for wearable devices that rely only on low-capacity batteries, such as activity trackers and exercise bands, smartwatches and smart glasses. It is also ideal for battery-powered smart home and building automation products, such as thermostats and HVAC risk control terminals, as well as smart audio/conferencing equipment.
Rolf Pauly, product line manager for environmental Sensing at ScioSense, said: "With an adaptive baseline and a new low-power mode, ENS161 offers the first possibility for low-power air quality monitoring in mobile devices, enabling manufacturers to implement air quality monitoring in a variety of wearable and portable devices with ScioSense's high-performance and high-reliability sensors. Without significantly affecting battery life."
The ENS161 sets a new industry standard in performance and versatility by providing multiple data outputs through a common I2C or SPI interface, including meaningful air quality signals that competitors cannot achieve. ENS161 output measurement results are as follows:
● Equivalent carbon dioxide concentration (eCO2)
● Equivalent Total Volatile Organic Compound concentration (eTVOC)
● Air Quality Index (AQI-U), scale 1-5, according to the index standards set by the German Federal Environment Agency (UBA)
● The new Air Quality Index, AQI-S, ranges from 0 to 500
