Pimoroni PSA001 Pulse Sensor Amped

Use Live Heartbeats and BPM in your Project.

Works with Arduino, micro:bit, littleBits, and most maker platforms. It can be used by students, artists, athletes, makers, game and mobile developers who want to easily incorporate live heart-rate data into their projects. It's quick and easy to get reliable pulse readings.

When the Pulse Sensor Amped is just sitting there, not in contact with any fingers or ear-lobes or other parts, the analog signal hovers around the mid-point of the voltage, or V/2. When the Pulse Sensor Amped is in close contact with your fingertip or earlobe (or other part) the change in reflected light when blood pumps through your tissues makes the signal fluctuate around that reference point.

Arduino watches the analog signal from Pulse Sensor, and decides a pulse is found when the signal rises above the mid-point. That's the moment when your capillary tissues gets slammed with a surge of fresh blood. Then, when the signal drops below the mid-point, Arduino sees this and gets ready to find the next pulse. There's also built in hysteresis to the rising and falling thresholds which you can adjust if necessary.

• The kit includes:
• A 24-inch colour-coded Cable, with standard male header connectors - plug it straight in, no soldering required
• An Ear Clip, perfectly sized for the sensor - can be hot-glued or epoxied to the back of the sensor
• Parts to make a handy Velcro Finger Strap - another great way to get heart-rate data
• 4 Transparent Stickers to insulate the front of the Pulse Sensor from oily fingers and sweaty ear-lobes
• The Pulse Sensor has 3 holes around the outside edge which make it easy to sew it into almost anything
• Visualization software (made in Processing) to instantly see output of the sensor and for troubleshooting
• Works with either a 3V or 5V Arduino