APDS-9960 gesture, proximity + colour with ESP32

Supply 3.3 V Bus I2C I2C address 0x39 Measures gesture, proximity, color, light

Pins and ESP32 wiring

Pin	Role	ESP32 pin	Notes
VL	Not wired to the ESP32	—	IR LED supply. Most boards link it to VCC with a solder jumper
GND	Ground	GND
VCC	Power	3V3
SDA	I2C data (SDA)	D21
SCL	I2C clock (SCL)	D22
INT	Interrupt	D35	Interrupt output (active LOW)

Suggested wiring for the 30-pin ESP32 DevKit, avoiding flash, input-only and strapping pins. BoardPilot checks it for you as you wire.

Check it is the real chip

Read register 0x92: a genuine part answers 0xAB. BoardPilot does this automatically in “Debug a problem”.

Starter code (Arduino)

#include <Wire.h>

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(115200);
  Wire.begin(21, 22);  // SDA = GPIO 21, SCL = GPIO 22
  Wire.beginTransmission(0x39);
  bool found = Wire.endTransmission() == 0;
  Serial.println(found ? "APDS-9960 gesture, proximity + colour found at 0x39" : "Not found: check power, GND and SDA/SCL");
}

void loop() {}

Sources

Broadcom APDS-9960 datasheet, Register 0x92 ID (reads 0xAB)
Broadcom APDS-9960 datasheet, I2C address 0x39; supply 2.4 to 3.6 V

Try it in 3D in BoardPilot

BoardPilot Part data (JSON)

Part data: CC BY 4.0, free to reuse with credit to BoardPilot.