After some searching, I ended up using a microcontroller and a piece of code borrowed from the web that I tweaked and adapted. The microcontroller-based concept was chosen because I wanted to scale ...

The power switch with infrared proximity sensor is intended for the recognition of obstructions at distances of a few millimetres to a few centimetres. This compact sensor switch can be used to open a ...

We’ll demonstrate this sensor using a single resistor and a multimeter. Sharp GP2Y0D02 fixed 80cm IR proximity detector (Digikey # 425-2064-ND, $14.38). Datasheet (PDF).

Thanks to an IR proximity sensor, [romain] can interrupt the cycle and get the date, time, temperature, or even a smiley animation depending on the number of hand passes over the sensor.