Murata today announced the LBCA series of ultra compact and ultra low power consumption Bluetooth Smart modules. Measuring only 5.4 x 4.4 mm (LBCA2BZZFZ without antenna), these surface mount devices are a quarter of the size of previous models and are aimed at the increasingly wide range of wearable devices, especially wristband-type applications, such as fitness monitoring, smart watches and remote controllers. Conforming to the Bluetooth 4.0 low energy protocol, the modules are available both with (LBCA2HNZYZ) or without a built-in antenna (LBCA2BZZFZ)).
With a 0dBm output power, the modules typically have a range of 30 metres. Interfaces include UART, SPI, I2C and GPIO. Peak current consumption is up to 4.5 mA, dropping down to a deep sleep current of 0.6 uA or less. Average current consumption during communications is 6 uA when 20 bytes of data are transmitted once per second. It is anticipated that with this use case up to 4 years operation is possible when using CR2032-type coin cells.
The modules come certified to FCC/IC, CE and TELEC regulations, significantly helping to reduce the development costs and time-to-market for new designs.