MAX30105 note: The MAX30105 sensor that we originally used on this breakout was discontinued by Maxim in 2021 but no fear, it's back as MAX30101 - it's exactly the same sensor with a different name.
The MAX30101 breakout is a sophisticated heart rate, oximeter, and smoke/particle sensor. Use it as a fun way to see your heartbeat, or to make LEDs or lights pulse in time with your heart. This sensor has three LED—green, red, and infrared—and photodetectors that can be used together to detect the amount of light reflected back to the sensor. A technique called photoplethysmography (PPG) can be used to detect the change in colour of your skin with each beat of your heart when the sensor is pressed against your fingertip.
You can use the MAX30101 to detect particles in the air, like smoke, by measuring the amount of light bounced back to the sensor by the particles. Our Python library on GitHub makes it straightforward to use your MAX30101 sensor. We've included some examples of how to display and graph and display heart rate, and a rough example of how to detect relative levels of particles like smoke. SparkFun have put together a really comprehensive Arduino library for the MAX3010x sensors that also includes examples of how to measure blood oxygen saturation (SPO2), temperature, and presence detection.
We've designed this breakout board so that you can solder on the piece of right-angle female header and pop it straight onto the bottom left 5 pins on your Raspberry Pi's GPIO header (pins 1, 3, 5, 7, 9). It's also compatible with our fancy Pimoroni Breakout Garden HAT (GRobotronics SKU: 13-00037703), where using breakouts is as easy just popping it into one of the six slots and starting to grow your project, create, and code. If you're using the MAX30101 with Breakout Garden for measuring heart rate, then we'd recommend using one of our Breakout Garden Extender Kits (GRobotronics SKU: 13-00012922) along with some female-to-female jumper jerky (GRobotronics SKU: 11-00015551).
