A drive sense circuit comprises an analog front-end and a digital back end. The analog front-end generates an analog drive sense signal based on an analog reference signal that includes a varying component. The varying component has a magnitude that is substantially less than a supply rail power of the drive sense circuit. When the drive sense circuit is coupled to a load, the analog front end drives the load with the analog drive-sense signal and detects an analog signal variation in the analog drive-sense signal based on a characteristic of the load. The digital back-end converts the analog signal variation into a digital sensed value corresponding to the characteristic of the load.