Inertial Measurement Units

A bunch of vendors sell boards with the InvenSense IMU chips.

• The IMU6000 is the baseline 6-axis chip: X, Y, and Z accelerometers, and gyroscopes for rotation about the X, Y, and Z axes.
• The IMU6050 is almost the same, but has only an I2C interface. No SPI.
• The IMU6500 is virtually identical to the IMU6000, except it has slightly better specifications (lower internal noise). So it should be a drop-in replacement for the IMU6000, with improved accuracy.
• The IMU9250 is a 9-axis unit; it adds a 3-axis magnetometer to measure compass heading. Per the data sheet, this unit is actually an IMU6500 with a magnetometer chip squeezed into the same package.

So the best choice for most folks is probably the IMU6500. For 9 axes, a separate magnetometer chip would allow better placement to avoid interference.