Description The VL53L0X sensor contains a very tiny invisible laser source, and a matching sensor. The VL53L0X can detect the “time of flight”, or how long the light has taken to bounce back to the sensor. Since it uses a very narrow light source, it is good for determining distance of only the surface directly in front of it. Unlike sonars that bounce ultrasonic waves, the ‘cone’ of sensing is very narrow. Unlike IR distance sensors that try to measure the amount of light bounced, the VL53L0x is much more precise and doesn’t have linearity problems or ‘double imaging’ where you can’t tell if an object is very far or very close. The sensor is small and easy to use in any robotics or interactive project. Since it needs 2.8V power and logic we put the little fellow on a breakout board with a regulator and level shifting. You can use it with any 3-5V power or logic microcontroller with no worries. Each order comes with a small piece of header. Solder the header onto your breakout board with your iron and some solder and wire it up for instant distance-sensing-success! Communicating to the sensor is done over I2C with an API written by ST, so its not too hard to port it to your favorite microcontroller. We’ve written a wrapper library for Arduino so you can use it with any of your Arduino-compatible boards. Sensing capabilities: The sensor can measure approximately 30mm to 1.2 meter in default mode. In ‘long range’ mode you can detect as far as 1.5 to 2 meters on a nice white reflective surface. Technical Specifications Dimensions: Weight without header pins: 0.5 g (including header) Operating voltage: 2.6 V to 5.5 V (module has on-board 2.8V regulator) Supply current: 10 mA (typical average during active ranging) Varies with configuration, target, and environment. Peak current can reach 40 mA. Output format (I²C): 16-bit distance reading (in millimeters) Distance measuring range: up to 2 m (6.6 ft); see the graph at the right for typical ranging performance. Effective range depends on configuration, target, and environment. The datasheet does not specify a minimum range, but in our experience, the effective limit is about 3 cm. Documents and Downloads VL53LOX Datasheet Arduino library for VL53LOX sensor Package Includes 1x GY-530 Time-of-Flight (ToF) 200cm Laser Ranging Sensor Module based on VL53L0X