MyoWare 2.0 Muscle Sensor

by Sparkfun

Using our muscles to control things is the way that most of us are accustomed to doing it. We push buttons, pull levers, move joysticks... but what if we could take the buttons, levers and joysticks out of the equation and control it with our muscles?

The MyoWare® 2.0 Muscle Sensor is an Arduino-compatible, all-in-one electromyography (EMG) sensor from Advancer Technologies that allows you to do just that! The MyoWare 2.0 Muscle Sensor has been redesigned from the ground up with a new easy-to-use, compact design and upgraded with the latest and greatest chipset improving sensor performance and reliability. The innovative snap connector system eliminates the need to solder connections for the MyoWare 2.0 ecosystem. It's that easy: stick on a few electrodes (not included), read the output voltage and flex some muscles!

The MyoWare 2.0 Muscle Sensor measures muscle activity through the electric potential of the muscle, commonly referred to as surface electromyography (EMG or sEMG for short). When your brain tells your muscle to flex, it sends an electrical signal to your muscle to start recruiting motor units (the bundles of muscle fibers that generate the force behind your muscles).

The harder you flex, the more motor units are recruited to generate great muscle force. The greater the number of motor units, the more the electrical activity of your muscle increases. MyoWare 2.0 Muscle Sensor will analyze the filtered and rectified electrical activity of a muscle and output a signal (0-VIN volts, where VIN signifies the voltage of the power source) that represents how hard the muscle is being flexed.

The MyoWare 2.0 Muscle Sensor builds upon its previous wearable design that allows you to attach biomedical sensor pads directly to the board itself, getting rid of those pesky cables. This board includes a single-supply voltage of +3.3V to +5V, three output modes, reverse polarity protected power pins, and indicator LEDs. Additionally, SparkFun have developed a few shields (such as the Cable, Power, and LED shields to name a few) that can attach to the MyoWare 2.0 Muscle Sensor to help increase its versatility and functionality! The muscle sensor’s snap connector system makes it easier to stack shields together. The top side connectors link to power and the sensor’s EMG envelope output while the bottom side links to the input electrodes.

Measuring muscle activity by detecting its electric potential has traditionally been used for medical research. However, with the advent of ever shrinking yet more powerful microcontrollers and integrated circuits, EMG circuits and sensors have found their way into all kinds of control systems such as video games, robotics, and prosthetics! Biomedical sensor pads can be purchased separately.

Note: MyoWare and the Muscle Sensor are not intended for use in the diagnosis of disease or other conditions, or in the cure, mitigation treatment, or prevention of disease, in a man or other animals.

The MyoWare® 2.0 ecosystem consists of shields that easily interface with the MyoWare® 2.0 Muscle Sensor, which is a low-cost, Arduino-compatible, all-in-one electromyography (EMG) sensor from Advancer Technologies. The innovative connector system allows users to easily snap shields together with a compact low profile and connect to a microcontroller's analog input to measure raw, filtered, and rectified electrical activity of a target muscle. This eliminates the need to solder connections between boards.

This product is a collaboration with Brian Kaminski from Advancer Technologies. A portion of each sales goes back to them for product support and continued development.

Features

  • Wearable Design
  • Supply Voltage
    • Minimum: +2.27V
    • Typically: +3.3V to +5V
    • Maximum: +5.47V
  • Input Bias Current
    • 250pA, max 1nA
  • Reverse Polarity Protection
  • Three Output Modes
    • Raw EMG
    • Rectified
    • Envelope
  • Expandable via Shields
  • MyoWare® 2.0 Muscle Sensor Form Factor
    • 3x Female Snap Pins (Power and EMG Envelope Output)
    • 3x Male Snap Pins (Input Electrodes)
  • LED Indicators
    • VIN
    • ENV
  • Reference Electrode Jumper
  • Specially Designed For Microcontrollers
  • Adjustable Gain
  • Board Dimensions
    • 37.57mm x 35.90mm (1.48” x 1.41”)

Revision Changes: The following changes for V2.0.4 include:

  • PCB board thickness increased.
  • NPTH for snap connector buttons.
  • Updated footprint for snap connectors buttons with slots for improved cleaning.
  • Updated size of reference pin's jumper pad.

Documents

[1] Note: This product is patent protected. To prevent counterfeit boards, the Eagle design files and GitHub hardware repository are not shared for boards in the MyoWare 2.0 ecosystem.

438 customer reviews

2 days ago
Very good pi useful update on previous models and much faster versatile piece of equipment
by Hugh about Raspberry Pi 5 via REVIEWS.io
4 days ago
The extra power and connectivity of the Pi 5 has not disappointed.
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5 days ago
In my opinion, the 2GB version of the Pi 5 has the perfect balance of price, compatibility and features. I have one running a home assistant server and another as a decoration piece running shaders on a HyperPixel 4.0 display. You don't need more RAM than 2GB for most applications. Also the CPU and GPU performance compared to Pi 4 is so much better, that for my use cases the older model is not worth the discounted price.
by Lauri about Raspberry Pi 5 via REVIEWS.io
6 days ago
Used with NVME storage via PCI interface. Great performance yet it only sips power. There is an amazing range of accessories for a SBC. The star of the show though is Raspberry Pi OS that has been well supported by Raspberry Pi for many years, ensuring that the bits I have bought have a long life.
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6 days ago
Last Raspberry Pi I tried was the 3B+ and the difference with the 5 is huge (especially with 8gb RAM). Weirdly enough, it was cheaper to buy it at Pimoroni and import it to the other side of the world, rather than buying it here!
by EDGAR about Raspberry Pi 5 via REVIEWS.io
12 days ago
Compared to previous versions, this one is more powerful and works perfectly, Uning it as a linux box to program a Lego mindstorm unit, it is quick in compilation and I have not issue with it.
by Gordon about Raspberry Pi 5 via REVIEWS.io
19 days ago
The Pi 5 is amazing, lightning fast and (with the official fan kit) super cool. It's a shame that some of the connectors are a bit fiddly and easily broken, but that's more down to the size of the Pi itself. Take care and go gentle with connecting everything up!
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a month ago
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a month ago
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a month ago
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a month ago
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a month ago
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a month ago
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a month ago
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a month ago
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a month ago
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a month ago
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a month ago
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a month ago
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a month ago
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by THOMAS about Raspberry Pi 5 via REVIEWS.io
a month ago
Trying out the latest. Really great at what i am trying to achieve
by Dave about Raspberry Pi 5 via REVIEWS.io
2 months ago
Whata great bit of kit - have several Pi3+ but this is a great step up in terms of performance. Happily running my full media server (emby) and will slowly migrate other tasks to it too
by Stephen about Raspberry Pi 5 via REVIEWS.io
2 months ago
I've had a couple of these and built retro gaming images to use with the 8gb version which I gave to friends. This time I tried the 4gb version and there's been no difference with performance for gaming via batocera so all good 👌🏻
by Ian about Raspberry Pi 5 via REVIEWS.io
3 months ago
This has been bought as a gift for my husband. He actually recommended buying from here - always good to have a recommendation ! Gift is wrapped for Christmas so not used yet.
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3 months ago
FASTTTT!! Compared to previous gen I have in the form of Pi400, there's a day and night difrerence. PCI-e and nvme with Argon NEO 5 M.2 NVME PCIE Case makes it very nice kit. I had to go max, 8 gigs, and my containers chug away without Pi5 breaking a sweat. Disclaimer: i'm a sucker for Pi Foundation products, so i'm massively biased :)
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