The Invensense has an autonomous mode (on Android devices it can count steps without bothering the host CPU) -- does the Bosch do this too?
IIRC there are accels that have a built in step counter (via hardware circuitry). I do not recall if Bosch has this, but the problem is that because it is a hardcoded hardware feature of the chip, it cannot be altered for customers. Apple NEVER accepts software/algoriths from its vendors. Bosch may be willing to redesign the chip with a step counter algorithm that Apple uses, but Apple would not share this with Bosch. Thus it is likely that the step counter is run on the M8 + BMA280.
They are unlikely to use the INVN autonomous step counter algorithm either. Whether the M8 + BMA280 is lower power than the MPU-6700 is something that is (a) unknowable, because we don't know the M8 specs, and (b) moot, because Apple would never use a 3rd party activity detection algorithm.
Interesting -- I thought someone with deep enough pockets could write their own DMP code for the IMVN part.
I'm sure the Android Wear devices (which mostly use the MPU-6500) must use the DMP to detect when to power on (they can't keep a Cortex-A7 juiced up just to look at gyro/accelerometer numbers), and IMVN didn't have anything like that publicly advertised a few months ago (I haven't looked more recently, and haven't inspected the Android Wear ROMs yet).
Comments
IIRC there are accels that have a built in step counter (via hardware circuitry). I do not recall if Bosch has this, but the problem is that because it is a hardcoded hardware feature of the chip, it cannot be altered for customers. Apple NEVER accepts software/algoriths from its vendors. Bosch may be willing to redesign the chip with a step counter algorithm that Apple uses, but Apple would not share this with Bosch. Thus it is likely that the step counter is run on the M8 + BMA280.
They are unlikely to use the INVN autonomous step counter algorithm either. Whether the M8 + BMA280 is lower power than the MPU-6700 is something that is (a) unknowable, because we don't know the M8 specs, and (b) moot, because Apple would never use a 3rd party activity detection algorithm.
Interesting -- I thought someone with deep enough pockets could write their own DMP code for the IMVN part.
I'm sure the Android Wear devices (which mostly use the MPU-6500) must use the DMP to detect when to power on (they can't keep a Cortex-A7 juiced up just to look at gyro/accelerometer numbers), and IMVN didn't have anything like that publicly advertised a few months ago (I haven't looked more recently, and haven't inspected the Android Wear ROMs yet).