I'd suggest paying the extra dollar or two (or less?) and finding a module with a focusing lens. It doesn't appear that this one has one. Without the lens it's a bit of a luck that gives you a nice dot or a wide blob.
Didn't really have a project in mind, just thinking out loud about possibilities at the moment.
We do have 4 cats, I'll have to keep that in mind.
Maybe one of those boxes you can wave your hand in to make different sounds to be pet safer. Left/right, up/down, in/out.
Not sure what the algorithm would be, maybe in/out would be volume, and the left/right could be notes low to high, with octaves rising as you move low to high. Finger could be one note, more fingers more notes, either in same octave, or across octaves.
So I guess 13 up/down, 7 left/right, and 7 in/out?
The wavelength is pretty far off. The first post show 650nm for the LASER and the link you posted shows the sensor to be sensitive to 880nm. Being pounded by a LASER, it probably won't be able to ignore it.
Any particular reason (aside from price) that you like that specific sensor? It's certainly small, and it ain't ugly I'll give it that. But your LASER module output is visible red, right? It doesn't look like there is any visible light filter over the die, so that seems to be a positive sign that it might work for you.
For a 5mW laser, I think almost any photodiode can be used I have a 1mW one and I can just pick one photodiode in my college days and make a light trigger (for camera/flash) out of it.
I think some high power laser is pulsed, so maybe that is something to check.