ZIO QWIIC Light Sensor (TSL2561) on the Raspberry Pi

The ZIO QWIIC Light Sensor utilises the TSL2561 sensor from TAOS (Texas Advanced Optoelectronic Solutions). The TSL2561 gives a 16-bit digital output of the luminosity values in the room in infrared and visible light. The board contains two QWIIC connectors to easily add it to the ZIO QWIIC ecosystem or can be connected to directly over I2C via the breakout pins.

Here’s how we setup the ZIO QWIIC Light Sensor on the Raspberry Pi.

Setting Up with Raspberry Pi

Step 1 Setup the Raspberry Pi

Check out this super quick video on how to setup the Raspberry Pi.

Step 2 Connect

Connect the Zio development board with TSL2561 Light Sensor to the Raspberry Pi via the ZIO QWIIC HAT.

Step 2 enable the I2C bus

Either from the Raspberry Pi’s desktop or via SSH, Open the terminal and type in:

sudo raspi-config and press enter.

Using your keyboards arrow keys, select ‘5 Interfacing Options’ and press enter.

Scroll down to ‘P5 I2C’ and press enter.

Then select ‘<Yes>’ and press enter to enable the I2C interface for the ZIO QWIIC ecosystem.

Select ‘<Ok>’ and ‘<Finish>’ to return to the terminal.

Step 3 Download python script

Whilst still in the terminal type:

sudo git clone https://github.com/machineshopuk/TSL2561

This will generate a folder called TSL2561, enter it by typing:

cd TSL2561

Then run the script by typing:

python TDL2561.py

The script will output full spectrum, infrared and visible light values to the terminal.