The SparkFun Triad Spectroscopy Sensor is a powerful optical inspection sensor also known as a spectrophotometer. Three AS7265x spectral sensors are combined alongside a visible, UV, and IR LEDs to illuminate and test various surfaces for light spectroscopy. The Triad is made up of three sensors; the AS72651, the AS72652, and the AS72653 and can detect the light from 410nm (UV) to 940nm (IR). In addition, 18 individual light frequencies can be measured with precision down to 28.6 nW/cm2 and accuracy of +/-12%. Utilizing our handy Qwiic system, no soldering is required to connect it to the rest of your system. However, we still have broken out 0.1"-spaced pins in case you prefer to use a breadboard.

The SparkFun Triad Spectroscopy Sensor communicates over I2C by default or over 115200bps serial. We've written a fully formed Arduino library to access all the various features include taking readings and illuminating LEDs all over the Qwiic I2C interface. In addition, the Triad can be setup to communicate over serial. The serial interface uses an AT command set.

What can you do with light spectroscopy? It’s an amazing field of study, and the SparkFun Triad brings what used to be prohibitively expensive equipment to the desktop. The AS7265x should not be confused with highly complex photon spectrometers, but the sensor array does give the user the ability to measure and characterize how different materials absorb and reflect 18 different frequencies of light. We've also written a full Arduino library that makes reading and interacting with the Triad simple and easy!

NOTE: The I2C address of the AS7265x is 0x49 and is hardware defined. A multiplexer/Mux is required to communicate to multiple AS7265x sensors on a single bus. If you need to use more than one AS7265x sensor consider using the Qwiic Mux Breakout.

The SparkFun Qwiic Connect System is an ecosystem of I2C sensors, actuators, shields and cables that make prototyping faster and less prone to error. All Qwiic-enabled boards use a common 1mm pitch, 4-pin JST connector. This reduces the amount of required PCB space, and polarized connections mean you can’t hook it up wrong.