BMI160 (GY-BMI160) accelerometer + gyro with ESP32

Supply 3.3-5 V Bus I2C I2C address 0x68 / 0x69 Measures acceleration, rotation

Pins and ESP32 wiring

Pin	Role	ESP32 pin	Notes
VIN	Power	3V3	Goes through the on-board regulator. Pin order differs between sellers
3V3	Not wired to the ESP32	—	Regulator output. Leave unconnected when you power VIN
GND	Ground	GND
SCL	I2C clock (SCL)	D22
SDA	I2C data (SDA)	D21
CS	Not wired to the ESP32	—	SPI chip select. Leave unconnected or HIGH for I2C
SAO	Not wired to the ESP32	—	Address select (SDO): LOW = 0x68, HIGH = 0x69

Suggested wiring for the 30-pin ESP32 DevKit, avoiding flash, input-only and strapping pins. BoardPilot checks it for you as you wire.

Check it is the real chip

Read register 0x00: a genuine part answers 0xd1. BoardPilot does this automatically in “Debug a problem”.

Starter code (Arduino)

#include <Wire.h>

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(115200);
  Wire.begin(21, 22);  // SDA = GPIO 21, SCL = GPIO 22
  Wire.beginTransmission(0x68);
  bool found = Wire.endTransmission() == 0;
  Serial.println(found ? "BMI160 (GY-BMI160) accelerometer + gyro found at 0x68" : "Not found: check power, GND and SDA/SCL");
}

void loop() {}

Sources

Bosch BMI160 datasheet, Register 0x00 CHIP_ID (reads 0xD1)
Bosch BMI160 datasheet, I2C address 0x68 (SDO to GND) / 0x69 (SDO to VDDIO)

Try it in 3D in BoardPilot

BoardPilot Part data (JSON)

Part data: CC BY 4.0, free to reuse with credit to BoardPilot.