Arduino Environmental Monitoring System using Grove Sensors

Environmental issues are gradually receiving attention. It has become important to implement a system that can monitor the indoor and outdoor environment and make an alarm when some environmental parameters break through the warning line. Using Grove sensors will be the fast DIY way to build an environmental monitoring system by the plug and play way.

For all Grove users (especially beginners), we provide you guidance PDF documents. Please download and read through Preface – Getting Started and Introduction to Grove before your using of the product.

And check our Smart Garden tutorial to help you quickly implement an environmental system at home.

Smart Garden 

In this tutorial, we made a Smart Garden sensor and reminder system by combining Grove starter kit modules. We use a DHT11 module to monitor the surrounding environment of the plant, use a light sensor to detect the surrounding light intensity.

Here we list the sensors you might need for the system depending on different needs, such as detecting temperature and humidity, Carbon Dioxide, air quality, PM2.5, and noise monitoring.

Temperature and Humidity Sensors

Grove – Temperature & Humidity Sensor (DHT11)

Grove – Temperature & Humidity Sensor (DHT11)

This sensor is a high accuracy Temperature and Humidity sensor based on the DHT22 module (also known as AM2302 or RHT03). High-cost performance and high precision make it ideal for temperature and humidity monitoring of Arduino and Raspberry Pi, you can also use it to make a thermometer and hygrometer.

Compared with the DHT11, this product has higher precision and wider measurement range, but the usage and code are almost the same. Simply put, if you need higher measurement accuracy, this product will be a better choice; if you need a higher price/performance ratio, then Grove – Temperature & Humidity Sensor (DHT11) may be more appropriate. The figure below lists the main differences between the two: 

Grove – Temperature & Humidity Sensor (DHT11)

Based on Bosch BME280, we made this low-cost and high-precision environmental sensor — the Grove – BME280 Environmental Sensor (Temperature Humidity Barometer), support I2C and SPI.

Grove BME280 provides a precise measurement of not only barometric pressure and temperature, but also the humidity in the environment. The air pressure can be measured in a range from 300 hPa to 1100hPa with ±1.0 hPa accuracy, while the sensor works perfectly for temperatures between – 40℃ and 85℃ with an accuracy of ±1℃. As for the humidity, you can get a humidity value with an error of less than 3%.

Grove – Temperature, Humidity, Pressure and Gas Sensor (BME680)

The Grove-Temperature&Humidity&Pressure&Gas Sensor(BME680) is a multiple function sensor which can measure temperature, pressure, humidity, and gas at the same time. It is based on the BME680 module. The 4-in-1 function is integrated with such a small module, it will be very beneficial to apply on IoT or GPS devices.

Grove – Temperature, Humidity, Pressure and Gas Sensor (BME680)

The SHT31 sensor could be the finest and highest-accuracy humidity sensor you can find, as it can acquire the relative humidity at only ±2% error. On the other side, it also features excellent performance in terms of temperature measurement, you can use it in some extreme conditions, like -40 degree or 125 degrees, and it still keeps an accuracy of ±0.3 degree.

Air Monitoring Sensors

We also have different air monitoring sensors for specific air such as detecting dust, and PM2.5, air quality, Carbon Dioxide, MQ2 & MQ3.

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We recommend you refer to our  Seeed Gas Sensor Selection Guide, it will help you choose the gas sensor that best suits your needs depending on different operating principle and field of applications.

There are a numerous use of these gas sensors. Particularly, using these gas sensors human beings can be saved from potential dangers. Hence the gas sensors play important roles in various sectors, which include industry, medical, environmental applications, and domestic applications for monitoring toxic and flammable gases.

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Water and Soil Detecting

Also, if you need to detect water and soil. We also have solutions for you.

Grove – Water Sensor detects the presence of water using exposed PCB traces. The sensor is made up of interlaced traces of Ground and Sensor signals. The sensor traces are weakly pulled up using 1 MΩ resistor. The resistor will pull the sensor trace value high until a drop of water shorts the sensor trace to the ground trace. This circuit will work with digital I/O pins of Arduino or you can use it with the analog pins to detect the amount of water induced contact between the grounded and sensor traces.

The Grove – Capacitive Moisture Sensor (Corrosion Resistant) is a soil moisture sensor based on capacitance changes. Compared with resistive sensors, capacitive sensors do not require direct exposure of the metal electrodes, which can significantly reduce the erosion of the electrodes. Hence, we call it Corrosion Resistant.

It is important to note that this sensor can only qualitatively test the humidity of the soil and cannot measure quantitatively. Which means when the humidity of the soil rises, the value of the output decreases; conversely, when the humidity decreases, the output value becomes higher.

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