VL53L1X Time of Flight (ToF) Sensor Breakout

by Pimoroni

An all-singing, all-dancing time of flight distance sensor that uses PEW PEW LASERS (low-powered ones), our VL53L1X breakout is easy to use with Raspberry Pi or Arduino alike!

These low-power-laser-based time of flight sensors have great accuracy and sampling frequency, and this particular sensor has a wide range of detection, from 4cm to 4 metres.

Use it as a proximity sensor, for presence detection, or as a laser tape measure! The speed, accuracy, and range, make this sensor ideal for collision-avoidance on robots.

It's also compatible with our fancy new Breakout Garden, where using breakouts is as easy just popping it into one of the six slots and starting to grow your project, create, and code.

Features

  • VL53L1X Time of Flight (ToF) sensor (datasheet)
  • 4-400cm range (27° field of view)
  • Up to 50Hz ranging frequency
  • +/- 25mm accuracy (+/- 20mm in the dark)
  • I2C interface (address 0x29)
  • 3.3V or 5V compatible
  • Reverse polarity protection
  • Compatible with all models of Raspberry Pi, and Arduino
  • Python library

Kit includes

  • VL53L1X breakout
  • 1x5 male header
  • 1x5 female right-angle header

We've designed this breakout board so that you can solder on the piece of right-angle female header and pop it straight onto the bottom left 5 pins on your Raspberry Pi's GPIO header (pins 1, 3, 5, 7, 9).

Software

Our Python library makes it straightforward to use your time of flight sensor, providing methods for short, medium, and long range, and returning distances in mm. We've also included a couple of examples that graph distance sensed, and set a threshold distance at which events can be triggered.

Notes

  • Dimensions: 19x19x3.2mm (LxWxH).
  • If you want to use multiple VL53L1X breakouts together you can (temporarily) change the I2C addresses using this Python script. Addresses changed like this won't persist after a reboot.
  • Alternatively, you could use an I2C multiplexer which will let you use multiple breakouts with the same address. This example shows how to use these breakouts with a TCA9548A I2C Multiplexer.

22 customer reviews

a year ago
Used with the breakout garden. Works perfectly with the provided python library, just make sure to remove the film over the sensor! Within minutes you can start measuring distances and have them update live using the provided examples.
by Harry about VL53L1X Time of Flight (ToF) Sensor Breakout via REVIEWS.io
2 years ago
The VL53L1X is a great distance sensor. As with all ToF sensors by ST, this one is at the top for performance and features. The only downside is that the I2C address is fixed, which makes is impossible to use more than one in a project.
by Dale about VL53L1X Time of Flight (ToF) Sensor Breakout via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
This little sensor works brilliantly. There's a lot of supporting code for it. The way the pins are staggered makes soldering easy. Just remember to remove the protective film! perhaps the one thing that it could change would be to breakout the XSHUT pin somewhere - on the side so it keeps the breakout garden profile.
by Daniel about VL53L1X Time of Flight (ToF) Sensor Breakout via REVIEWS.io
5 years ago
Setup is not as easy as other pimoroni hats. I had to email support twice before I got it running issues with python 2/3 and not finding the libraries. At the wend the code was running the sensor did not work correctly at distances more than 50 cm. I assume I got a dud...
by Anonymous about VL53L1X Time of Flight (ToF) Sensor Breakout via REVIEWS.io
5 years ago
This is a great little board which I decided to get as it measures further than my other ToF sensors, up to 4m in fact. I should mention one thing though, in case others have the trouble I had with distance readings going very strange, especially for longer distances. Basically, the sensor I got had a tiny bit of coloured plastic over the lenses, presumably for protection in transit. Caused some frustration for a while, but once removed it started working perfectly :-)
by Andrew about VL53L1X Time of Flight (ToF) Sensor Breakout via REVIEWS.io
6 years ago
This laser distance sensor is much more accurate than an ultrasonic one and very suitable for robotics projects. Measurements are also accurate when the object surface is in an angle position (which is a problem with ultrasound).
by Marcel about VL53L1X Time of Flight (ToF) Sensor Breakout via REVIEWS.io
7 years ago
This thing is pretty neat and fast to respond. It does have issues if there is nothing in its path, as it will randomly jump to something very close, when in fact there is nothing there at all. But if you have something within its range, it detects changes very well.
by Chad about VL53L1X Time of Flight (ToF) Sensor Breakout via REVIEWS.io
7 years ago
Got this sensor breakout board today and have been playing with it this afternoon. I installed the two required python libraries smbus2 and vl53l1x as described in the software link on a Pi3, and tried the example file graph.py. This worked very well, and I was impressed with the sensitivity and the quick response of the device. The only problem I have had with the device was in getting to to work with python35 instead of python2.7 Using pip3 to install the required libraries worked form smbus but didn't work properly for the vl53l1x library. After a bit of head scratching I mmaged to solve the problem, and Phil (Gadgetoid) also came up with a solution on the support forum, so I think that he will sort the problem properly soon. The board is very small (much smaller that an ultrasonic sensor), and it is designed so that you can plug it directly onto 4 specified pins on the Raspberry PI. Do take care when doing this however, as if you use the wrong side you will get 5V rather than 3.3 volts supplied which could have disastrous consequences. I'm marking my pins to prevent accidents! The board is more expensive than an Ultrasonic Sensor but I think the extra cost is worth the reduction in size and the far superior performance, together with the simple plug in directly to a Raspberry Pi GPIO pins. You do however have to solder the (supplied) connector on to the board, but there is plenty of room, and it is not very difficult to do.
by Robin about VL53L1X Time of Flight (ToF) Sensor Breakout via REVIEWS.io