BMP280

The BMP280 is a digital barometric pressure sensor developed by Bosch Sensortec. It combines a MEMS pressure sensor and a temperature sensor to provide measurements of ambient air pressure and temperature. The device outputs results as digital data over I2C or SPI and is used in a wide range of applications, including smartphones, wearables, drones, and weather stations.

The BMP280 stores factory-calibrated compensation coefficients in on‑chip non-volatile memory and applies temperature compensation to pressure readings. It yields 24-bit pressure and 24-bit temperature data, with selectable oversampling, a programmable filter, and configurable standby times to trade resolution for power and speed. It operates on a supply voltage typically between 1.7 and 3.6 volts and supports a wide operating temperature range.

Interfaces and operation: The sensor supports I2C and SPI communication. For I2C, it can present one of two possible addresses (depending on the SDO/ALT pin state). Data is read from a small set of registers; a set of calibration coefficients is read at initialization to be used by the compensation formulas. The component is designed for low power consumption and can be used in battery-powered devices.

Applications: The BMP280 is commonly used for altitude estimation by measuring atmospheric pressure, as well as for basic weather sensing. It is found in many consumer electronics, embedded projects, and professional instrumentation, and is supported by numerous development environments, including Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and MicroPython libraries.

History: The BMP280 is part of Bosch’s BMP family and serves as an improved successor to earlier BMP models, offering higher accuracy, lower noise, and a smaller footprint for compact devices.