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🌊 Slight dispatch delays possible as we catch up with sale orders, please bear with us 🐨

PMW3901 Optical Flow Sensor Breakout

by Pimoroni

This fancy optical flow sensor detects motion of surfaces in front of it, from ~80mm to infinity! It's great for DIY drone builds, and it's compatible with our new Breakout Garden HAT with SPI.

The PMW3901 is a crafty little sensor that uses a low-resolution camera and some clever algorithms to detect motion of surfaces. A great use for it is detecting and correcting for drift of a drone by looking for x/y motion of the ground below.

You can use this breakout completely solder-free with our new Breakout Garden HAT with SPI!

Features

  • PMW3901 optical flow sensor
  • Two white LEDs on-board for illumination
  • Frame rate: 121 FPS (frames per second)
  • Speed: 7.4 rad/s (radians per second)
  • Field of view: 42°
  • Range: ~80mm to infinity 
  • 6mA typical current draw
  • SPI interface
  • 3.3V or 5V compatible
  • Reverse polarity protection
  • Compatible with all models of Raspberry Pi and Arduino
  • Python library

    Software

    We've put together a Python library to use with your Optical Flow Sensor Breakout. It makes reading the x/y motion values and their magnitude really straightforward.

    Connecting to your Raspberry Pi

    If you're not using our Breakout Garden HAT with SPI, then this is how to connect your Optical Flow Sensor Breakout up to your Raspberry Pi.

    Our library is set up to use the front SPI slot by default: BCM 7 for CS, BCM 11 for SCK, BCM 10 for MOSI, BCM 9 for MISO, and BCM 19 for the INT pin.

    Here's which pins to connect between your Optical Flow Sensor Breakout and your Pi's GPIO (note that it's BCM pin numbering):

    • 3-5V to any 5V or 3V pin
    • CS to BCM 7
    • SCK to BCM 11
    • MOSI to BCM 10
    • MISO to BCM 9
    • INT to BCM 19
    • GND to any ground pin

    You can of course use other pins but you'll have to change them accordingly when you instantiate the sensor in your code.

    Notes

    Dimensions: 24x24x5mm

    32 customer reviews

    a year ago
    A really neat and easy to use sensor package. Shouldnt take more than an hour to familiarise yourself with it as the library for it is pretty robust and easy to use. Added it to a project of mine (circuit python) and it works just as expected. I really like it!
    by Sony about BME280 Breakout - Temperature, Pressure, Humidity Sensor via REVIEWS.io
    2 years ago
    A great little sensor that is almost 'plug and play'. Just plug it into a board like the Pico Breakout Garden and download the example program to get it going. You really don't need to do much yourself. That said, more accessible, improved documentation, detailing the methods used to set up the device and access data would help deepen understanding of the device and how to develop and modify applications using it.
    by Robert about BME280 Breakout - Temperature, Pressure, Humidity Sensor via REVIEWS.io
    2 years ago
    Useful sensor with a choice of connectors for soldering. Worked seamlessly with a Pico W. Found the literature and information on the Pimoroni website somewhat arcane and less than straightforward to access, but plenty of help available on YouTube
    by Robert about BME280 Breakout - Temperature, Pressure, Humidity Sensor via REVIEWS.io
    2 years ago
    Bought the BME280 breakout as a replacement for the BME280 sensor on an Enviro+ board that had gone awry. After checking with the excellent Pimoroni forum for help, I soldered the board to the GPIO header on the Enviro+ with the supplied header pins. I made use of the address selection trace on the back BME280 breakout board. All now works and is up and running the Luftdaten python script with a small change to the code to allow for the address change to 0x77. Great service from Pimoroni, ordered on Tuesday and arrived on Thursday.
    by Mike about BME280 Breakout - Temperature, Pressure, Humidity Sensor via REVIEWS.io
    3 years ago
    Instructions on how to use it and set up are good. Got it all working without hassle and used it as a project to team my kids to solder, which went well. Readings seem to be accurate and correspond with other local weather stations in the year.
    by John about BME280 Breakout - Temperature, Pressure, Humidity Sensor via REVIEWS.io
    4 years ago
    These sensors work as they should, I couldn't find how to access specific addresses using the pimoroni python library examples but a search led me to install the RPi.bme280 libràry (sudo pip install RPi.bme280) and I was able to read from two dme280 sensors connected in parallel using addresses 0x76 and 0x77.
    by Anonymous about BME280 Breakout - Temperature, Pressure, Humidity Sensor via REVIEWS.io
    4 years ago
    Handy little sensor.. I am using this to provide a data feed to the magic mirror smart dashboard I have at home to keep an eye on indoor conditions. Fantastic. Try to keep the unit few cms away from the pi..it is quite sensitive to any heat.
    by Badrinath about BME280 Breakout - Temperature, Pressure, Humidity Sensor via REVIEWS.io

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