The “time of flight” rangefinders remind me a bit of a smart gesture sensor chip (with an IR light, 90x90 cam and dsp) recognizes a few gestures. Not suitable for timing critical stuff it’s more of a control panel thing, I believe the rotation sensing can count revolutions (it contains some 80 registers)
It’s plugged into a BBC microbit, that little board they gave every 12 year old in England as a learning aid. The $10-15 board has bluetooth and an accelerometer and galvanometer.