Sensors

Sensors are how a circuit perceives the world — measuring movement, temperature, pressure, light, gas and more, and turning it into a signal a system can act on. This range covers the full spread: temperature and humidity, movement and PIR, proximity and Hall-effect, pressure and force, gas and optical sensing. Rapid supplies industrial automation, IoT and maker projects and the classroom alike. If it's in our warehouse, it's next-day delivery; if it's with our suppliers, it's with you within a week, usually four days.

Choosing a sensor

What sensors does Rapid stock?

The range covers environmental sensing (temperature, humidity, gas), motion and presence (movement, PIR, proximity, Hall-effect), mechanical measurement (pressure, force, position, encoders), and flow, level, current and optical sensing. Whether you're monitoring a process, building an IoT device or teaching physical computing, the sensing type you need is here.

How do I choose the right sensor?

Start with the quantity you need to measure and its range, then look at the output and interface — an analogue output needs an ADC, a digital or bus output (such as I2C) reads straight into a microcontroller, and a switched output simply makes or breaks. Match those to your board, and factor in the operating environment: temperature, humidity and exposure all narrow the choice. Getting quantity, output and environment right is what makes a sensor usable in a design.

Can you supply for industry, IoT projects and education?

Yes. The range serves industrial and automation use, IoT and maker projects built around single board computers, and classroom physical computing, from single sensors for prototyping to production and class-set quantities. It sits alongside the wider components range for building the rest of a circuit.