APDS9960 EOL, looking for alternative

Automation and Control Sensors Transducers
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1

Broadcom no longer manufactures APDS9960, can some suggest alternatives? Whether single or separate sensor for color and proximity?

2

Hi shashi,

Welcome to the Tech Forum.

I should start out by saying that we do currently have over 18k pieces in stock, so if this is not for a new design, there is still quite a bit of available stock on the APDS-9960.

Furthermore, as noted by this EOL notice, the last time buy date to order additional quantities (will need to meet their MOQ requirements) is June 30th, 2024, with last delivery date to be no later than Dec 30, 2024.

If this does not satisfy your needs, which characteristics of the APDS-9960 are important to your design? Notable characteristics of this part include:

  • RGB color sensing
  • Ambient light sensing
  • Proximity detection
  • Gesture detection
  • Integrated IR LED
  • External IR LED driver
  • I2C interface
  • Small form-factor
  • Other features
3

Hello Digikey

Thanks for the reply. Yes I could use some, but I’m worried about manufacturing future devices or making any contracts.

I’m looking for ‘clear’ channel in color sensor and proximity detection, with IC2.

If alternatives are available I’d rather start looking to change over now when I’m still in early testing phase.

Thanks
-Shashi

4

Hello Sashi:

We don’t have a direct equivalent to offer for APDS-9960 - these are the closest alternatives I found. Take a look at the datasheets to see if you feel one of these alternatives will meet your needs.

5

I have found these:

  1. TMG39923 ams-OSRAM USA INC.
    TMG39923 ams-OSRAM USA INC. | Sensors, Transducers | DigiKey
    There are also other TMGxxxxxx and datasheets are very similar to APDS9960
  2. Open this link and type “gesture” in search
    Ambient Light, IR, UV Sensors | Optical Sensors | Electronic Components Distributor DigiKey
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6

I’ll check them out. Thank you Gregory

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8

Hello,
are there any other options for gesture recognition?

9

Hello Autaro,

Welcome to the DigiKey TechForum.
Click here for the gesture type sensors.
These are the only active ones I found in our system.

10

@David_1768 Thank you for your fast reply.
The only replacement I see is the APDS-9500; all the other components seem to “just” detect a distance but not actual gestures like movement from left to right or something similar.
The TMD49033 is also EOL, so no real replacement :frowning:
Still, thanks a lot for your help!

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11

Another option is to use 3 or 4 photo elements with an infrared LED, single mosfet for pulsed operation and some microcontroller that provides 3 or 4 ADC channels. I have created a very robust gesture recognition algorithm that works with such setup and tested it on raw signals from apds9960: https://youtu.be/4hF31a0a314

But the main problem is optics for photoelements. APDS9960 provides great isolation between photoelements despite their very close spacing. As far as I remember, datasheet mentions some kind of micro lenses. In other words, if we simply put 4 photoelements on PCB, performance will be not the same. Need some kind of plastic lenses or maybe black plastic cover with a window for each photoelement and IR led itself.