Sense the magnetic fields that surround us with this handy triple-axis magnetometer (compass) module. Magnetometers can sense where the strongest magnetic force is coming from, generally used to detect magnetic north, but can also be used for measuring magnetic fields. This sensor tends to be paired with a 6-DoF (degree of freedom) accelerometer/gyroscope to create a 9-DoF inertial measurement unit that can detect its orientation in real-space, thanks to Earth's stable magnetic field. It's a great match for any of our 6-DoF IMU sensors such as the LSM6DSOX or LSM6DS33.

We based this breakout on ST's LIS2MDL, a great general purpose magnetometer. This compact sensor uses I2C to communicate and its very easy to use. Simply download our library and connect the SCL pin to your I2C clock pin, and SDA pin to your I2C data pin and upload our test program to read out magnetic field data. If you'd like, you can also use SPI to receive data (we just happen to prefer I2C here)

This sensor can measure up to nearly +-50 gauss (49.152 gauss to be specific, +- 4952 uTesla) which is quite a bit! It also has an adjustable data rate and can take measurements as slowly as 10Hz and as fast as 100Hz.

This adorable little magnetometer is quite capable but it is near-microscopic at 2mm square. To make things easier, we've put it on a  breakout PCB along with support circuitry to let you use this little wonder with 3.3V (Feather/Raspberry Pi) or 5V (Arduino/ Metro328) logic levels.

Additionally since it speaks I2C, you can easily connect it up with two wires (plus power and ground!).  We've even included SparkFun qwiic compatible STEMMA QT connectors for the I2C bus so you don't even need to solder! Just wire up to your favorite micro and you can use our CircuitPython / Python or Arduino drivers to easily interface with the LIS2MDL and get magnetic measurements ASAP.