Light sensors

Measure visible, IR, XYZ, and RGB light spectrums with our fully integrated, high performance commercial and automotive grade light sensors. 

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TI’s optical light sensors with integrated photo sensor and passive filters offer excellent spectral matching, low power, and configurable conversion times. These products support a wide dynamic range with semi-logarithmic output and an auto-ranging feature to ensure exceptional performance in all lighting conditions. Applications of these products range across industrial, automotive, and personal electronic markets.

Featured light sensors

Why choose our light sensors?

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Spectral matching

Accurately measure visible, broad, IR, XYZ and RGB spectrums to ensure the best user experience.

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Versatile packaging

Our multitude of package options, including the industry's thinnest package, allows placement in size restrictive and automotive applications.

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High dynamic range

Our optical sensing ranges from 312uLux to 167kLux enabling use in a variety of lighting conditions including dim, bright, and behind covered material.

Advantages of incorporating a light sensor

Transform the way users interact with your product 

With an emphasis on automatic display brightness, LED brightness, and color adjustment applications, our latest light sensors are designed to precisely measure visible, IR, XYZ and RGB light. TI light sensors provide a quick conversion time down to 600µs, enabling quick adjustments to accommodate sudden changes in lighting conditions, providing a seamless user experience. Our devices have ultra-sensitive resolution which is essential for finer control of display brightness with the ability to hide the light sensor discreetly behind dark cover glass. 

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Application brief
Localized Light Sensors for Automotive Applications (Rev. A)
Ambient light sensors are becoming commonly found in automotive display applications, first introduced as a single optical sensor located on the front of the dashboard.
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Application brief
How to Select a Light Sensor for Your Application (Rev. C)
Light sensors, also known as photodetectors, detect the presence or absence of light, and the intensity of the light. These convert light energy into an electrical signal, which can then be analyzed or used to trigger an action.
PDF | HTML
Featured products for enahnced user experience
OPT3004 ACTIVE Digital ambient light sensor (ALS) with increased angular IR rejection
OPT4001-Q1 ACTIVE Automotive high-speed high-precision digital ambient light sensor (ALS)
OPT4048 ACTIVE High-speed high-precision tristimulus XYZ color sensor

High-resolution video  

Our solutions for ambient light and color sensing provide enhanced recording quality and precise camera exposure with high sensitivity and high-resolution color measurement. TI light sensors are equipped with excellent spectral matching, including visible, absolute color matching and relative color matching. Our sensors are capable of rejecting 99.99% of near-infrared light, preventing unwanted toggle between day and night detection, along with distorted imaging.

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Application brief
The Value of a High-Speed, High-Resolution Light Sensor
Light sensors sensitive to the visible region are often used for tamper detection, day vs night detection, LED or display brightness adjustments.
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Application brief
How to Select a Light Sensor for Your Application (Rev. C)
Light sensors, also known as photodetectors, detect the presence or absence of light, and the intensity of the light. These convert light energy into an electrical signal, which can then be analyzed or used to trigger an action. 
PDF | HTML
Featured products for enchanced video features
OPT3005 ACTIVE Ambient light sensor (ALS) for video surveillance cameras
OPT4001 ACTIVE High-speed high-precision digital ambient light sensor (ALS)
OPT4060 ACTIVE High-speed high-sensitivity RGBW color sensor

Optimize energy consumption

Our latest light sensors are designed from the ground up, with a low-power architecture to help bring you accurate light sensing into battery-operated applications that require lower power consumption in automotive, industrial and consumer electronics applications.

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Application brief
OPT3006: Ambient Light Sensor in Wearable Applications
Wearable equipment such as smart watches, wearable glass, and health and fitness devices are getting increasingly popular. 
PDF
Application brief
How to Select a Light Sensor for Your Application (Rev. C)
Light sensors, also known as photodetectors, detect the presence or absence of light, and the intensity of the light. These convert light energy into an electrical signal, which can then be analyzed or used to trigger an action. 
PDF | HTML
Featured products for enhanced battery life
OPT3004 ACTIVE Digital ambient light sensor (ALS) with increased angular IR rejection
OPT3002 ACTIVE Light-to-digital sensor
OPT3001 ACTIVE Digital ambient light sensor (ALS) with high-precision human-eye response

Technical resources

Video series
Video series
TI Precision labs - Light sensors
This light sensor curriculum contains short training videos covering the basics of light sensors, key specifications for selecting light sensors for different applications and much more.
Application brief
Application brief
How to Select a Light Sensor for Your Application (Rev. C)
This application note describes how to select and compare an ambient light sensor based on the four most important features: spectral response, power, size, and range of lux measurement.
document-pdfAcrobat PDF
Application brief
Application brief
The Value of a High-Speed, High-Resolution Light Sensor
This application notes delves into the system advantages of utilizing a light sensor with a fast conversion time, highlighting the improvement in user experience.
document-pdfAcrobat PDF

Discover featured applications

Tamper detection
Ultra-low-power and compact solutions for tamper detection
Day and night detection
Day and night detection, enabled by fast sensors, enables faster reaction to environmental changes
LED and display brightness adjustment
Extremely sensitive light sensors help achieve finer control on display brightness
Color adjustment
High-resolution and high-speed color sensors to improve color accuracy

Ultra-low-power and compact solutions for tamper detection

Our light sensor solutions for tamper detection help detect case openings, broken seals, or any other external elements affecting measurement precision by detecting a change in light.

Benefits:

  • Extremely low power for battery-operated applications.
  • Wide-bandwidth sensing channel enables sensing of a variety of light types, including ultraviolet and near-infrared light.
  • Automatic full-scale light-range selection logic ensures the best possible resolution for all lighting conditions.

Featured resources

END-EQUIPMENT / SUB-SYSTEM
REFERENCE DESIGNS
  • TIDA-01069 – Advanced Motion Detector Using PIR Sensors Reference Design For False Trigger Avoidance
PRODUCTS
HARDWARE DEVELOPMENT
  • OPT3002EVM – OPT3002 light-to-digital sensor evaluation module
TECHNICAL RESOURCES

Day and night detection, enabled by fast sensors, enables faster reaction to environmental changes

Applications that require the detection of a light threshold use day and night detection to determine if it is daytime, with a high lux value, or nighttime, when there is a minimum amount of light.

Benefits:

  • Strong infrared rejection helps maintain high accuracy when industrial design calls for mounting the sensor under dark glass, especially with active 850nm or 940nm near-infrared illumination.
  • Extremely low power enables use in battery-operated applications.
  • Automatic full-scale light-range selection logic ensures the best possible resolution for all lighting conditions.

Featured resources

END-EQUIPMENT / SUB-SYSTEM
REFERENCE DESIGNS
  • TIDA-010254 – Battery-powered mmWave radar sensor with sub-1-GHz and Bluetooth® 5.2 reference design
PRODUCTS
  • OPT3005 – Ambient light sensor (ALS) for video surveillance cameras
  • OPT4003-Q1 – Automotive high-speed high-precision digital light sensor
TECHNICAL RESOURCES

Extremely sensitive light sensors help achieve finer control on display brightness

Our light sensors provide an enhanced user experience by measuring ambient lux, allowing an adjustable display brightness based on sensor readings from a microcontroller.                       

 

Benefits:       

  • Extremely low power for battery-operated applications.
  • Reduces eye strain to enhance the user experience. 
  • Suitable for automotive, industrial and PE applications.

Featured resources

END-EQUIPMENT / SUB-SYSTEM
REFERENCE DESIGNS
  • TIDA-010042 – 400-W GaN-based MPPT charge controller and power optimizer reference design
  • TIDA-010224 – Low-power wireless camera reference design for extended battery life
PRODUCTS
  • OPT3004 – Digital ambient light sensor (ALS) with increased angular IR rejection
  • OPT4001 – High-speed high-precision digital ambient light sensor (ALS)
  • OPT4001-Q1 – Automotive high-speed high-precision digital ambient light sensor (ALS)
TECHNICAL RESOURCES

High-resolution and high-speed color sensors to improve color accuracy

Light sensors for color adjustment measure the color temperature and adjust the colors of a display accordingly. Applications of color sensors include ambient light color sensing, relative color matching, absolute color matching and ambient light lux sensing. 

Benefits:

  • White-point adjustment ensures that content on a display is viewed as it would be on a white sheet of paper.
  • Ability to distinguish light sources such as sunlight, compact fluorescent and fluorescent.
  • Adjusting the color of ambient lighting to adjust the color in a display helps ensure color accuracy.

Featured resources

END-EQUIPMENT / SUB-SYSTEM
PRODUCTS
  • OPT4048 – High-speed high-precision tristimulus XYZ color sensor
  • OPT4060 – High-speed high-sensitivity RGBW color sensor
TECHNICAL RESOURCES

Design & development resources

Evaluation Board
Light source calibration module
The LIGHTSOURCE01EVM is a stable uniform light source used for the calibration of ambient light sensors (ALS) and color sensors. This light source is designed to be used in production environments to calibrate and test final products containing TI light sensors. 
Calculation tool
OPT3006 Field of View (FoV) Simulator
The field of view simulator allows users to understand the potential effects of changing the angle of exposure such as the the amount of light taken in and the performance thereafter.
Driver or library
Linux driver for OPT3001 and OPT3006

The Linux driver supports the OPT30001 Digital Ambient Light Sensor (ALS) with High Precision Human Eye Response. The Linux driver supports communication through the I2C bus and registers to the IIO (Industrial Input/Output) class of the Linux kernel.

Linux Mainline Status

Available in Linux Main (...)