How to start building your application with Xsens DOT

What is Xsens DOT?

Xsens DOT is a development platform based on Bluetooth wearable sensors. It provides endless opportunities to develop your own application using highly accurate motion tracking data. Our platform is a great fit for building applications in the field of sports, health, academic research, and many others. Examples could be rehabilitation, gait analysis, joint angle measurements, or performance analysis for sports etc. Xsens DOT gives you access to our high-fidelity motion tracking data, fine-tuned over the past 20 years of experience with inertial sensor technology. This means that we will ensure the highest quality information, even in case of transient data loss.

Xsens DOT is flexible and easy to integrate with any device, providing a short time to market when building a commercial application. Do you immediately want to start building your application? Xsens offers you the Xsens DOT set. This set contains a charging case with 5 sensors and a micro USB charging cable. Additionally, you will get full access to our software package, documentation and support. The software package includes: the Xsens DOT App, the Xsens DOT Server, the Xsens DOT Data Exporter, and the Xsens DOT SDK. The total Xsens DOT set costs €495,- and it available in our online shop.

Watch Xsens DOT Unboxing video here.

The must-read manuals for Xsens DOT

The Xsens DOT SDK facilitates the development of your application as it includes all libraries and functions that you need. So, when you want to develop an application for mobile devices, you can find all the information you need in our SDK documentation and programming guide. Is your goal to develop a PC based application and you are not going to use the Xsens DOT SDK? Then we recommend you checking out the BLE service specification manual, as it gives all the information with regards to the Bluetooth protocol, services, and characteristics. In general, if you are using Xsens DOT for the first time it is recommend reading our Xsens DOT User manual as well as the BLE service specification manual.

Connecting the DOTs

For starting with Xsens DOT, you should download the Xsens DOT App. This app can easily be download for Windows and iOS. After the app is downloaded, turn on the sensors and plug the USB cable connected to a power supply. As soon as you launch the app, it will automatically scan for Xsens DOT sensors, so you do not have to try to pair the sensors. Do you want to start a new scan? Just drag down the interface and the Xsens DOT App will start scanning the sensors again.

Once sensors are detected, they start blinking. Make sure the sensors are close enough to your phone and are not in power saving mode. In the Xsens DOT App, you can see the MAC-Address and battery status of the sensors as well as the firmware version. Additionally, you can assign the sensors with a name tag. If you press the identify button of a sensor, this sensor will blink very quickly so that you know which sensor you have just connected. Do you want to power off a tracker? Press the power off button in the app or press the sensor and hold for about 3 seconds.

Xsens DOT App features

If you want to make a recording you have to click on Measure & Collect in the Xsens DOT App. Before starting the recording, you can choose your streaming mode. This can be real-time streaming, which is live, or on-board recording mode, which is offline. Next to live of offline, you can also choose between different recording modes: Sensor Fusion Mode, Inertial Data Mode and Custom Mode.

Sensor Fusion Mode includes orientation and free acceleration, whereas Inertial Data Mode includes acceleration angular velocity and magnetic field. Additionally, there is an option for Custom Mode, which has different combinations of the data. Other features of the Xsens DOT App are over-the-air firmware upgrade, heading reset, and magnetic field mapping. Do you want to know more about the Xsens DOT App? Watch our full Xsens DOT App Tutorial.

Join the Xsens DOT community!

As mentioned, Xsens DOT helps you with highly accurate motion tracking data to develop your own application. This motion tracking data can be used for multiple purposes. Do you need some more guidance for the usage of Xsens DOT? Feel free to ask our advice! We are more than happy to help you figuring out how you can use Xsens DOT in the best way possible or how you can develop your own application with Xsens DOT.

Visit our developer page to see what Xsens DOT can do for you.