Mouser is excited to be an exhibitor at Sensors Converge 2024 in Santa Clara, California, from June 24-26. From sensors and chips to the cloud, Sensors Converge covers everything focused on sensors, processing, and connectivity—the building blocks of IoT. This year’s conference will offer more than eighty educational sessions and six in-depth workshops delivered by more than 100 leaders in sensor engineering.
In preparation for Sensors Converge 2024, this blog will briefly overview trends in the hearables and wearables markets concerning MEMS sensors and highlight how this impacts MEMS sensor development.
MEMS Sensor Trends
Forecasts predict the MEMS industry will grow to a 20 billion dollar market by 2028, with MEMS sensors contributing a significant portion.[1] Some of the biggest markets for MEMS sensors are for IoT devices, specifically hearables and wearables. According to Yole, most of the MEMS market is made up of devices in consumer products, such as headphones, smartwatches, AR/VR headsets/accessories, and laptops.
MEMS sensor devices spearheading this trend are inertial sensors, pressure sensors, force sensors, multi-axes geomagnetic sensors, microphones, bone conduction sensors, and even RF MEMS sensors.
Let’s take a look at the latest trends, innovations, and evolving MEMS sensor technology impacting hearable and wearable design.
Hearables
A significant trend in the hearables market has been the growth of active noise canceling (ANC) wireless headphones and true wireless stereo (TWS) earbuds. ANC headphones and TWS earbuds often feature MEMS technology, especially sensors.
Where mechanical buttons, such as multi-function buttons (MFBs), have a long legacy in hearables, there is a trend toward more svelte and cleaner designs that eschew the design necessities of bumps and spacing associated with traditional mechanical buttons.
This is where MEMS capacitive touch sensors, capacitive pressure sensors, and MEMS force sensors are beginning to fill in a niche. Embedding MEMS sensors within the product’s housing enables higher levels of environmental protection and much more aesthetic design freedom, not to mention longer product life without the risk of mechanical button failure. MEMS capacitive and force sensors tend to have a much higher lifetime cycle than mechanical buttons.
Many new higher-end hearables, including earbuds and headphones, have MEMS capacitive sensors that function as volume slides.
MEMS force sensors are emerging as an alternative, offering some advantages over capacitive sensor technology, such as tactile feedback. Other uses for MEMS capacitive pressure/touch and force sensors include detecting use state, for example, if the hearables are being worn on the ears or set aside, which can be used to initiate play, pause, or other controls.
Inertial sensors and accelerometers are also growing in prevalence in headphones and earbuds, as many now have technologies that detect user activities and change performance profiles based on those activities. Inertial sensors are also being used as an interface method, using taps in some headphones for pause/play control. Many higher-end devices also use sensor fusion with touch, pressure, or force and inertial sensors to include advanced features for enhanced product diversification.
Of course, ANC technologies also widely make use of MEMS microphone technologies. The same MEMs microphones used for ANC and hands-free calling are also being used in some devices for use state detection and may auto-pause or initiate a personal assistant technology if paired with the correct voice commands or audio patterns.
3D audio is also starting to emerge with ANC headphones, as beamforming is becoming a significant diversifying factor for headsets for conferencing or calls. Predictions are that these features may diffuse to mid and low-end wireless headphones and earbuds. Additionally, bone-conduction MEMS sensors are also trending upwards as the technology continues to gain adoption.
Wearables
Wearables, such as smartwatches, AR/VR headsets, smart glasses, fitness trackers, smart clothing/textiles, and even implantables are steadily on the rise in adoption, contributing to the growth of MEMS sensors commonly used in these technologies. Like hearables, inertial sensors/gyroscopes, pressure sensors, force sensors, touch sensors, and microphones are essential for many of these technologies.
Some smartwatches and medical technology (MedTech) wearables also use external blood-oxygen sensors, gait/balance detectors, blood-glucose monitors, lactate level measurements, stress hormone measurements, and other chemical sensors.
Furthermore, MEMS sensors are used with wearable ECG monitors that can detect respiration rates, body temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, and other vitals. MEMS variants of these sensor technologies typically have the advantage of being much more miniaturized, lower power, and more readily compatible with low-cost PCB technologies and other common electronic fabrication technologies than traditional realizations of these sensors.
Hence, there is a growing demand for MEMS sensors to fill these roles. This list includes barometric pressure sensors, which can be used to provide accurate elevation measurements and paired with other location technologies, such as inertial dead-reckoning, to deliver indoor navigation capabilities. These types of functions are growing in demand as aging populations in many countries are creating markets for elderly care devices and monitoring systems.
About Author
Principal of Information Exchange Services: Jean-Jacques DeLisle
Jean-Jacques (JJ) DeLisle attended the Rochester Institute of Technology, where he graduated with a BS and MS degree in Electrical Engineering. While studying, JJ pursued RF/microwave research, wrote for the university magazine, and was a member of the first improvisational comedy troupe @ RIT. Before completing his degree, JJ contracted as an IC layout and automated test design engineer for Synaptics Inc. After 6 years of original research—developing and characterizing intra-coaxial antennas and wireless sensor technology—JJ left RIT with several submitted technical papers and a US patent.
Further pursuing his career, JJ moved with his wife, Aalyia, to New York City. Here, he took on work as the Technical Engineering Editor for Microwaves & RF magazine. At the magazine, JJ learned how to merge his skills and passion for RF engineering and technical writing.
In the next phase of JJ’s career, he moved on to start his company, RFEMX, seeing a significant need in the industry for technically competent writers and objective industry experts. Progressing with that aim, JJ expanded his companies scope and vision and started Information Exchange Services (IXS).
