Choosing components for air quality and temperature monitoring

Using Arduino Project Guidance
1

Hello community

I am planning to use an arduino + sensors to gather some data about my room (mainly temperature and air quality (CO2)). In a later step I will create an API to visualize that data on a website. Therefore I will need wifi.

I thought about the following:

  • Arduino Nano 33 IoT (cheap and has wifi)
  • DHT22 (Sensor for temperature and humidity)
  • MQ135 (air quality and CO2 sensor)

I never really worked with an arduino before so I am not sure about my choice of components. Is this the right arduino for this job? Are there other/better sensors?

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Wemos D1 mini (cheaper and has wi-fi)
SHT21 or perhaps BME280 if interested in barometric pressure also.
Don't know much about CO2 sensors but have heard that MQ135 is not good.

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have a look at

  1. ESP32 has WiFi and Bluetooth classic and BLE
  2. the BME280
  3. the CO2 sensor I used was EZO-CO2 sensor probably too expensive
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I am using a BME680 to get Temperature, air pressure, humidity, and gas resistance (IAQ). I use a MHZ19 to measure Co2. They work fine and last a long time. I use an ESP32 which ultimately sends the data to my website.

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Has WiFi but anything but cheap! :astonished:

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This CO2 sensor was easy to use with I2C and Adafruit's libraries:

The following screenshot shows bedroom data for 24 hours one day last winter, when house is closed up tight.

Compare to 400 ppm outdoor level and recommended max of 1000 ppm from various sources.

image
image467×994 29.4 KB

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Oh the Wemos D1 mini ESP8266 (hope thats the one you meant) is waaay cheaper. Are there any major sacrifices comparing to the arduino or is the arduino a bit "overkill" for my project? And thank you for your sensor recomendation I will have a look at them

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The Nano33 iot is, to my mind, an over complicated and wasteful design. It has a total of 3 32-bit CPU cores of 2 different designs, only one of which is available to the Arduino user as far as I know, and the other 2, which are more powerful, are used only to manage the BT & WiFi. It has more pins than the D1 mini, but with careful selecting of components, that won't be a disadvantage for the D1 mini.

A warning: there are many D1 mini clones available on eBay, Ali express, Amazon etc, and some are inferior quality. I would recommend D1 mini from the Lolin shop on Ali Express. Lolin developed the D1 mini originaly. Maybe other forum members can recommend other sources for good quality D1 mini.

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I am a bit overwhelmed with all these ESP32 boards. Which of these would you reccomend for my project?
I will have a look at the BME280 and yeah the CO2 sensor is too expensive for this small project but thank you anyways for mentioning it :slight_smile:

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What ESP32 do you use / would you recommend for me?

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Yes, after reading the comments and looking into some ESP32 I realised that it is definitely not cheap. Thank you for pointing it out :sweat_smile:

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hmm this sensor is a bit more expensive but therefore probably more precise (?). Thank you for the images as well I have something very similiar in mind

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Thank you for all this information It helps me a lot! Hmm buying it from their store on aliexpress would probably be the best idea but I don't want to wait 8 weeks for its arrival :frowning: Therefore I will probably buy it from a online shop based in Europe.

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I use ESP32's made by HiLetGo,

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I tend to use the NodeMcu ESP32 WROOM-32 38 pins Development Board Dual Core WLAN WiFi Bluetooth - on EBAY in the UK under £7

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Thank you all so much for your opinion and information! I will probably go for a NodeMCU Lua V3 4M ESP32 ESP-WROOM-32 and a BME680

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