Time-of-Flight (ToF) Laser Ranging Sensor Breakout 940nm GY-VL53L0XV2 Laser Distance Module I2C IIC

This is a pretty decent VL53L0X breakout board, and the level shifting is nice compared to earlier breakouts for this particular chipset/family (no worry about the 2.7V <->3.3V logic levels). Bought about four of them since I could rush deliver through Prime, and all of them worked and gave out good readings. At least one other review posted here says it works with the Adafruit VL53L0X library, and I'm sure it does (I was working on a different embedded system and rolled my own), but please realize Adafruit isn't getting any money from this board so if you just buy this one (or any generic board out there) and then use Adafruit's (or Sparkfun's or Pololu's ) libraries, you're not really contributing to a development ecosystem that is going to maintain itself longterm. Usually the way a new chip/SOC gets brought to the masses is through a company like Adafruit or Sparkfun or Pololu investing their people and time and money into figuring out how to interface to it and then selling that board with an open-source library that they wrote. Within a few months, then generic knockoff boards will appear on Amazon and Ebay, often exact clones of the PCBs that Adafruit generated (this one is a bit different, but I've literally seen boards that say Adafruit on them, but clearly aren't from Adafruit), and they will undercut the price from Adafruit since they don't have to invest the money in making it, they just take it and make it themselves. I don't work for any of these companies, please be aware, but I do worry we'll be forced to go back to the dark-ages eventually if these companies have to close up since they're not being supported. I know everyone has a different financial situation, and I'm not saying I'm above it either, but if you can spare the extra money, getting the actual original board from Sparkfun or Adafruit or wherever, would help the community as a whole.

I'm currently using this in a project with a NodeMCU using the Arduino IDE with Adafruit's VL53L0X library. It works great and required very little setup -- just use Adafruit's instructions and the default I2C port on whatever device you are using. They also have a great Python library (Adafruit Blinka) if you want to use the Raspberry Pi, but they do not support Tinkerboard and many other single board linux computers, so proceed with caution. It would be possible to add support for your board and experienced users might be able to do this quickly/easily, but it would require you making changes to Adafruit's default setup. Very accurate on shiny surfaces. Also the default I2C address is 0x29 but it is very easy to change the address in software:1. pull all shutoff pins low2. delay about 10 ms to cause sensors to reset3. pull shutoff on device whose address you want to change high4. send appropriate command (_lox_.begin(_address_) where _lox_ is the sensor you defined and _address_ is the desired address) to the sensor to change the i2c address3. pull shutoff on next sensor you want to change the address on high, repeating steps 3-5 until you have changed all the addresses.Pulling shutoff low or cutting the power will reset the sensors, so you will have to repeat this process at every boot.Amazing and cheap little modules.

Good board and easy to start but development on this chip is a mess. Someone who isn’t that versed in embedded coding has to go through a baptism by fire.

Works as expected, and is pleasantly precise. Very small: about 15mm x 10mm excluding the screw holes. Has a range of about 500mm.I used the adafruit library with no issue.

This is a replacement for an earlier unit that died after a year. This one is more erratic in measurement than the original. I am using it outside to measure accumulated snow depth. You must compensate for temperature variations, voltage variations, and light conditions, and if this unit is an example, individual quality variations.

Spent some time weighing up this sensor or the more expensive fruity one, but as I wanted the smallest possible sensor for my project, I decided to give this one a go. Arrived on time, headers were easy to solder, and using the sample code from the Arduino library by pololu, I was delighted that it all worked first time. You can ignore 2 of the wires for many applications - XSHUT and GPIO are not needed for basic examples. The other nice thing for me is that the mounting holes are big enough for standard nylon threads unlike many of the other sensors I seem to have, so that's a nice bonus. I can see me buying more of these for all sorts of range finding projects...

Easy setup and very accurate over short distance. Using it to measure plant growth.

Fantastic device. Worked well, but needs to be more developed for MATLAB compatibility.