STMicro Targets Always-On Wearable Vision Gadgets with New Ultra-Low-Power BrightSense Cameras

STMicroelectronics has announced two new entries in its BrightSense family of vision sensors, focusing on ultra-low power draw — to bring always-on vision to wearable devices, the company says.

"Always‑on vision is becoming essential for the next generation of personal electronics, from smart glasses and AR/VR [Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality] headsets to intelligent home appliances and medical devices," says STMicro's Alexandre Balmefrezol of the company's latest launch. "With VD55G4 and VD65G4, we are bringing this capability to smaller, lighter products that must run for a long time on a tiny battery. These new sensors help our customers create more intuitive and responsive experiences, extend battery life, and bring embedded vision and edge AI [Artificial Intelligence] into everyday devices."

Part of the company's BrightSense image sensor range, the VD55G4 monochrome and VD65G4 RGB color sensors come with optimizations delivering a claimed tenfold power reduction than rival global shutter sensors, with a dedicated always-on mode and the ability to monitor for changes in a scene on-sensor — only waking up the microcontroller or microprocessor they're connected to if something changes. Both models have an 804×704 resolution and a global shutter, with a 2.16µm pixel pitch, back-side illumination for low-light operation, and up to 184 frames per second full-resolution output.

Power draw for both sensors depends on how you're using it: streaming video data to a host device over MIPI Camera Serial Interface 2 (CSI-2), SPI, or I3C buses at 60 frames per second will see the sensors draw under 35mW, while the low-power "sleepy" monitoring mode for event-driven operation draws a claimed 1–2mW. The sensors are controlled, meanwhile, over the user's choice of I2C or I3C buses.

More information is available on the STMicro website; samples are now available, with pricing yet to be disclosed.