The Arduino community has created a wide variety of modules and sensors that can enhance your projects. Here’s the ultimate collection of 20 free guides for Arduino Modules and Sensors that can help you get started with them.
We have an updated guide with more sensors. Check it out here: Arduino: 39 Free Guides for Sensors and Modules.
1. DHT11/DHT22 Humidity and Temperature Sensor
These DHTXX sensors are very popular among the Arduino Tinkerers. The DHT sensors are relative cheap sensors for measuring temperature and humidity [click to continue reading…]
2. BMP180 Barometric Sensor
This guide shows how to use the BMP180 barometric sensor with the Arduino. It is also applicable for other similar barometric sensors [click to continue reading…]
3. FC-37 or YL-83 Rain Sensor
The rain sensor is used to detect water and it can detect beyond what a humidity sensor can. The FC-37 or YL-83 rain sensor [click to continue reading…]
4. YL-69 or HL-69 Soil Moisture Sensor
The soil moisture sensor or the hygrometer is usually used to detect the humidity of the soil. So, it is perfect to build an automatic watering system or to monitor the soil moisture of your plants [click to continue reading…]
5. DS18B20 Temperature Sensor
The DS18B20 temperature sensor is a 1-wire digital temperature sensor. This means that you can read the temperature with a very simple circuit setup. It communicates on common bus, which means that you can connect several devices and read their values using just one digital pin of the Arduino [click to continue reading…]
6. DS1307 or DS3231 Real Time Clock (RTC)
This post is about how to use the DS1307 Real Time Clock (RTC) module with the Arduino. You can also follow this guide for other similar modules like the DS3231 RTC [click to continue reading…]
7. MQ-2 Gas/Smoke Sensor
This guide shows how to build a smoke detector that beeps when it detects flammable gas or smoke. The MQ-2 smoke sensor is [click to continue reading…]
8. HC-SR04 Ultrasonic Sensor
The HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor uses sonar to determine distance to an object like bats do. It offers excellent non-contact range detection with high accuracy and stable readings in an easy-to-use package. From 2cm to 400 cm or 1” to 13 feet. It comes complete with ultrasonic transmitter and receiver module [click to continue reading…]
9. PIR Motion Sensor
The PIR motion sensor is ideal to detect movement. PIR stand for “Passive Infrared”. Basically, the PIR motion sensor measures infrared light from objects in its field of view. So, it can detect motion based on changes in infrared light in the environment. It is ideal to detect if a human has moved in or out of the sensor range [click to continue reading…]
10. Tilt Sensor
The tilt sensor is many times referred to as inclinometer, tilt switch or rolling ball sensor. Using a tilt sensor is a simple way to detect orientation or inclination [click to continue reading…]
11. Microphone Sound Sensor
This guide shows how to use the microphone sound sensor with the Arduino. The microphone sound sensor, as the name says, detects sound. It gives a measurement of how loud a sound is [click to continue reading…]
12. Reed Switch
A magnetic contact switch is basically a reed switch encased in a plastic shell so that you can easily apply them in a door, a window or a drawer to detect if the door is open or closed [click to continue reading…]
13. RFID
RFID means radio-frequency identification. RFID uses electromagnetic fields to transfer data over short distances. RFID is useful to identify people, to make transactions [click to continue reading…]
14. Relay Module
A relay is an electrically operated switch of mains voltage. It means that it can be turned on or off, letting the current go through or not [click to continue reading…]
15. nRF24L01
These RF modules are very popular among the Arduino tinkerers. The nRF24L01 is used on a wide variety of applications that require wireless control. They are transceivers which this means that each module can transmit and receive data [click to continue reading…]
16. 433 MHz Transmitter/Receiver
These RF modules are very popular among the Arduino tinkerers. The 433MHz is used on a wide variety of applications that require wireless control [click to continue reading…]
17. OLED Display
It is a very small display, the screen has 25mm x 14mm (0.98in x 0.55in). It is made of 128 by 64 individual OLED pixels and no backlight is required. That OLED display is monochrome (white color), but there are other models with several colors [click to continue reading…]
18. 8×8 Dot Matrix
The dot matrix that we’re going to use in this guide is an 8×8 matrix which means that it has 8 columns and 8 rows, so it contains a total of 64 LEDs [click to continue reading…]
19. WS1812B Addressable RGB LED Strip
The WS2812B LED strip is an addressable RGB LED strip. The information in this guide also works with other similar LED strips, such as strips of the WS28XX family, Neopixel strip and others [click to continue reading…]
20. Membrane Keypad
A keypad allows you to interact with a microcontroller. They come in wide variety of shapes and sizes. The most common sizes are 3×4 and 4×4 and you can get keypads with words, letters and numbers written on the keys [click to continue reading…]
Wrapping up
Do you know how to use all these modules? Are you thinking about using one of the modules listed above in your next project?
Leave a comment down below!
You can read all my tutorials on this page.
Share this post with a friend that also likes electronics.
Thanks for reading,
-Rui
P.S. Here’s a list with 21 Arduino Modules You Can Buy For Less Than $2
The email link you sent me does not point to a PDF but back to the same web page I requested the PDF from…
How do I get the PDF??
Here’s the download page: randomnerdtutorials.com/ebook/
I was having a redirect issue while trying to get the download link
Hey Rui, What a great collection of reference materials! Thanks for all your efforts!
You’re welcome,
Thanks for reading!
Rui
hi rui,
very useful info. only comment on sr-04 – horizontal orientation would not detect say legs of a chair. however if you orient it vertically it will ‘catch’ most objetcs. probably bats sensors are too placed in that manner (i am not aware of it) you may try this yourself on a moving robot.
sunil
Thanks for the tip!
Te agradezco toda la información, ya que esta me a servido en mis proyectos. Muchas gracias.
Gracias Eduardo!
Hi Rui. You are writing wonderful articles. However, I find you are dwelling too much on Arduino. This is not proper. Arduino is not for those who wish to learn electronics and enjoy making mistakes , thereby learning more. It is spoon feeding, both hardware & software. As an old timer, I feel Arduino is not to be promoted to youngsters, who should learn by making mistakes. i checked the sketches, they are bloated and way out of context. Writing properly documented C codes is better. I tried to “port” Arduino sketches to C, but have not met with much success.
Can you do something with normal AVR development boards like ATMega8, ATMEGA 328 etc? Without Arduino sketches?
regards.
A M Morawala
I agree with you, but most of my readers prefer to deal with the Arduino IDE, because it’s so easy to prototype.
Thanks for the suggestions!
Rui
As A M Morawala, I am an “old timer” too. ( a very old timer lol). I can and do understand the frustrations of picking up new technology. When I discovered Arduino it was my introduction into the world of the many microprocessors out there. Each has their own characteristics to be learned. For me, using the Arduino IDE was the easiest way to explore the inter-workings of the Atmel family of microcontrolers. I “grew up” in a world of Basic, Fortran, Assembly, Cobal; C (and it’s variants) were not yet heard of. It is safe to say that scripting languages et-al were not heard of. Add to that the fact that the modules like the 8266 have come along and can use the NodeMCU/Lua language as well as the Arduino IDE.
The point I’m trying to make is that the world of micro controllers is ever evolving, and as such, different approaches can be taken. One blog could not possibly handle them all, nor could I as an enthusiast learn them all even if I sat full time in front of my PC.
That being said, in my opinion Rui provides great great tutorials for getting started with these micro controllers. There are many others to be sure, and many websites that address them. As well as related subjects like programing in C or Lua, etc. as well as basic electronics.
For me as a “very old timer” Rui takes much of the frustration of “unlearning” the old and replacing that with new knowledge. Thank you Rui.
THANKS! Rui
Thanks a lot for these very informational tutorials. They made my life a lot easier to understand how the sensors and so on work and how to effienciently use them 🙂
You’re welcome.
Thanks for reading Stephan,
Rui
Thank you for intressing information.
You’re welcome! Thanks for reading.
Rui
Hey, THANKS a lot for these tutorials. There are about nine that I must do. You are great for doing this and I really enjoy and appreciate it.
You’re welcome Jack! Thanks for reading,
Rui
Informative and interesting thaks
Thank you!
I want to use the APDS-9960 Gesture recognition module with arduino,. Do you have code or examples and hook up on how I can do this?
Hi Mark.
Unfortunately we don’t have any tutorials on that subject.
Regards
Sara