Ambient Light Sensor TEMT6000 with Arduino

Last Updated on March 16, 2024

Measurement of physical quantity needs good transducers by the way here we have TEMT6000 Ambient light sensor from Vishay Semiconductors. The electronic designers has vast number of options to choose sensors, transducers for measurement but they need only robust and quality pieces.,There is So many ambient light company that is manufactures of ambient light sensors and creating various range of light sensors. Here we taken TEMT 6000 for example.




What is ambient light?

The light present in a room or space without adding additional artificial lights. Or it can be said as Natural light.

Why we Measure?

To control electronic applications to our need depend on light intensity.

Ambient light sensor for display backlight dimming in: Mobile phones Notebook computers PDA’s Cameras Dashboards (From datasheet).

 TEMT6000 Ambient light sensor

TEMT6000 is a silicon NPN epitaxial planar phototransistor in a miniature transparent mold for surface mounting onto a printed circuit board. The device is sensitive to the visible spectrum.

The breakout board has only one resistor for biasing need, it consumes 3.5  to 5.5 volt and the signal output (SIG) from sensor can be connected to any analog input pin of micro-controller in our case Arduino analog pin A0.

Features of TEMT6000

• Adapted to human eye responsivity

• Wide angle of half sensitivity ϕ = ± 60°

• SMD style package on PCB technology

• Suitable for IR reflow soldering

• Lead free component

• Component in accordance to RoHS 2002/95/EC and WEEE 2002/96/EC

Arduino Hookup

The ambient light Sensor module or breakout board cost few dollars and easily available, here we used sparkfun breakout board. First thing we have to apply bias to the SMD device TEMT6000, the breakout board makes it very easy hence connect +5v from Arduino to VCC & GND from Arduino to GND of sensor board. Finally connect SIG (signal) pin of breakout board to Arduino’s analog A0 pin. That’s it connection between breakout board and Arduino is over.

TEMT6000-Arduino Code

 

int temt6000Pin = 0;

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop() {
  int value = analogRead(temt6000Pin);
  Serial.println(value);

  delay(100); //only here to slow down the output so it is easier to read
}