Laser time-of-flightLasertime-of-flight

A simulation of how the part behaves — not a recording of mine. Bench photos go in the evidence below.

1. 01 · Pulse→

   A laser you can't see

   The VL53L0X fires an invisible 940 nm pulse from a tiny laser — a VCSEL — built into the package.

2. 02 · Photons→

   Nanoseconds, not milliseconds

   Light is almost a million times faster than sound: the round trip to something a metre away takes about 6.7 nanoseconds. The sensor counts the returning photons and does the timing on the chip.

3. 03 · Distance■

   Different physics, different failures

   Ask it over I²C and it answers in millimetres, out to about 2 metres. Sound struggles with soft, angled surfaces; light struggles with very dark or shiny ones. Knowing which to use is the actual skill.

What I actually did with it

• 01Used for distance on the bench, next to the HC-SR04

[ADD — what you used it for]