MPU6050 on OLED: Accelerometer & Gyro
Overview & Wiring
What it is: The MPU6050 is a 6-axis motion sensor: a 3-axis accelerometer plus a 3-axis gyroscope in one chip. It's the go-to sensor for tilt sensing, self-balancing robots, and gesture projects.
How it works: I2C device at address 0x68 (0x69 if AD0 is tied high). The accelerometer measures g-force on each axis (gravity shows as ~9.8 on the "down" axis); the gyro measures rotation rate. Shares SDA/SCL with the OLED.
Wiring (shared I2C bus with the OLED):
MPU6050 SDA -> GPIO4
MPU6050 SCL -> GPIO5
MPU6050 VCC -> 3V3
MPU6050 GND -> GND
OLED VCC=3V3, GND=GND, SDA=GPIO4, SCL=GPIO5
Libraries: "Adafruit MPU6050" (installs "Adafruit Unified Sensor" and "Adafruit BusIO"), plus "Adafruit SSD1306" and "Adafruit GFX Library".
On screen / Serial: acceleration X/Y/Z in m/s². Tilt the board and watch gravity move between axes.
Gotchas: Address is 0x68 by default. The raw gyro drifts over time — for stable angles you'd fuse accel + gyro with a complementary or Kalman filter (beyond this intro). Let it sit still a moment at power-on.
Circuit Diagram
Parts You Need
Source Code (Arduino / ESP32)
#include <Wire.h>
#include <Adafruit_GFX.h>
#include <Adafruit_SSD1306.h>
#include <Adafruit_MPU6050.h>
Adafruit_SSD1306 display(128, 64, &Wire, -1);
Adafruit_MPU6050 mpu;
void setup() {
Serial.begin(115200);
Wire.begin(4, 5);
display.begin(SSD1306_SWITCHCAPVCC, 0x3C);
if (!mpu.begin(0x68)) {
Serial.println("MPU6050 not found");
display.setTextColor(SSD1306_WHITE);
display.setCursor(0, 28); display.println("MPU6050 not found");
display.display();
while (1) delay(10);
}
}
void loop() {
sensors_event_t a, g, temp;
mpu.getEvent(&a, &g, &temp); // accel, gyro, temperature
display.clearDisplay();
display.setTextColor(SSD1306_WHITE);
display.setTextSize(1);
display.setCursor(0, 0); display.println("MPU6050 accel m/s2");
display.setTextSize(2);
display.setCursor(0, 14); display.printf("X %.1f", a.acceleration.x);
display.setCursor(0, 32); display.printf("Y %.1f", a.acceleration.y);
display.setCursor(0, 50); display.setTextSize(1); display.printf("Z %.2f", a.acceleration.z);
display.display();
Serial.printf("aX %.2f aY %.2f aZ %.2f m/s2\n",
a.acceleration.x, a.acceleration.y, a.acceleration.z);
delay(200);
}