Introduction

CircuitPython driver for the Adafruit TMF8801 Time of Flight Distance Sensor - 20mm to 2.5m

Dependencies

This driver depends on:

• Adafruit CircuitPython

• Bus Device

• Register

Please ensure all dependencies are available on the CircuitPython filesystem. This is easily achieved by downloading the Adafruit library and driver bundle or individual libraries can be installed using circup.

Purchase one from the Adafruit shop

Installing from PyPI

On supported GNU/Linux systems like the Raspberry Pi, you can install the driver locally from PyPI. To install for current user:

pip3 install adafruit-circuitpython-tmf8801

To install system-wide (this may be required in some cases):

sudo pip3 install adafruit-circuitpython-tmf8801

To install in a virtual environment in your current project:

mkdir project-name && cd project-name
python3 -m venv .venv
source .env/bin/activate
pip3 install adafruit-circuitpython-tmf8801

Installing to a Connected CircuitPython Device with Circup

Make sure that you have circup installed in your Python environment. Install it with the following command if necessary:

pip3 install circup

With circup installed and your CircuitPython device connected use the following command to install:

circup install adafruit_tmf8801

Or the following command to update an existing version:

circup update

Usage Example

import board
from adafruit_tmf8801 import tmf8801

i2c = board.I2C()

# This uploads about 11.6 kB of firmware to the sensor
sensor = tmf8801.TMF8801(i2c)

print(f"Firmware version: {'.'.join(str(part) for part in sensor.firmware_version)}")
print(f"Serial number: {sensor.serial_number:#06x}")

sensor.start_measuring()

while True:
    if sensor.data_ready:
        distance = sensor.distance
        if distance is not None:
            print(f"Distance: {distance} mm")

Documentation

API documentation for this library can be found on Read the Docs.

For information on building library documentation, please check out this guide.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please read our Code of Conduct before contributing to help this project stay welcoming.