ESP thing with air sensor

Qwiic System
1

Hi everyone,

I’m new to electronics and new to this forum. I hope my question is appropriate and in the right place, my apologies otherwise.

It’s been years that I wanted to build a environment sensor that includes temperature, humidity and air quality, that will live outside and inside (two kits). I’ve previously bought the ESP8266 thing dev, but never used it, because of a lack of electronic knowledge.

But this time, I’m ready, and I hope some of you will be ok to help me on my path.

The idea is to have a sensor that takes the various parameters (temperature, humidity, pressure, air quality (co2)) and send them via WiFi to a specific point every 5 minutes. (The coding part is not a problem for me, it’s my background.)

For this, the [SparkFun Environmental Sensor Breakout - BME680 seems perfect, but I have questions related to this:

What is a “gaz sensor”? Does it indicates the air quality ? What about the CO2?

Since I want to connect this to my old ESP8266 thing dev, the support at Sparkfun recommended me the following:

  • - [[Flexible Qwiic Cable - Breadboard Jumper (4-pin)](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/17912) - To connect the ESP with the sensor
  • - [[Lithium Ion Battery - 2Ah](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13855)
    • [/list]

    (I plan to custom print the final box that will receive the kit).

    So here are my related questions:

  • - Is this enough or am I missing important items, such as resistor?
  • - How does the sensor detects the environment : Do I have to put some parts of this sensor outside of the box? Do I need to buy extensions that will leave outside the box to receive the data (pressure, temperature, humidy)? Because if I put this inside the box, I'm pretty sure the humidity sensor will return wrong values ;)
  • - How long can the battery last if I start it every 5 minutes, load the data from all the sensors, connects to the wifi, send the values to an HTTP endpoint and then go back to sleep? I am not looking to an exact value here, but I wonder if it's the hours or month range.
  • - How do I recharge the battery? Since it's a JST component , I can not plugin it to my USB charger right away.
    • Thank you so much for your help!](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13855)](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/17912)](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/16466)
    2

    For this, the SparkFun Environmental Sensor Breakout - BME680 seems perfect, but I have questions related to this:
    What is a “gaz sensor”? Does it indicates the air quality ? What about the CO2?

    We recommend this sensor, as it has more features https://www.sparkfun.com/products/14348 , allowing more precision of the gas sensor…check out the data sheet for it here
    https://cdn.sparkfun.com/assets/learn_t … 000459.pdf
    It indicates air quality according to the parameters you set, usually c02 in PPM and TVOC in PPB

    Since I want to connect this to my old ESP8266 thing dev, the support at Sparkfun recommended me the following:
    Flexible Qwiic Cable - Breadboard Jumper (4-pin) - To connect the ESP with the sensor

    YES
    Lithium Ion Battery - 2Ah

    YES

    Is this enough or am I missing important items, such as resistor?

    This should be good

    How does the sensor detects the environment : Do I have to put some parts of this sensor outside of the box? Do I need to buy extensions that will leave outside the box to receive the data (pressure, temperature, humidity)? Because if I put this inside the box, I’m pretty sure the humidity sensor will return wrong values :wink:

    Please read the hookup guide here for tips regarding set-up…but generally this is best determined by you and your use-case https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/cc … 1615791300

    How long can the battery last if I start it every 5 minutes, load the data from all the sensors, connects to the wifi, send the values to an HTTP endpoint and then go back to sleep? I am not looking to an exact value here, but I wonder if it’s the hours or month range.

    This is also something you would determine for yourself experimentally

    How do I recharge the battery? Since it’s a JST component , I can not plugin it to my USB charger right away.

    Any Jst compatible charge would work such as https://www.sparkfun.com/categories/421
    Hope this helps, and happy sparking!

    3

    Thank you for all your input, I really appreciate!

    Could you tell me how can I put the sensor outside of the box while protecting it from the weather? (rain, snow, etc). I looked at the hookup guide but didn’t find how I can put it outside without any risk regarding rain. Having it inside a plastic box will cause some data to not be accurate.

    Do you have any specific link regarding this?

    Thank you.

    4

    Nothing specific, but maybe arrange it to where it is protected a box with one side, bottom, open, and the device hanging inside. Or have a separate fan that blows air toward it at a safe, slow, low level…then you can normalize the data against the ‘flow’ level. It might be a good idea to check out some videos of outdoor sensor set-ups and see what other folks have done.

    Best of luck!

    5

    Make sense! Thank you! I’ll work my way around the box :slight_smile:

    6

    I wanted to order my kit, along with the PRT-13855 lithium ion battery, but I can’t ship it in my country (France).

    What can I take instead of this battery, hopefully in the same price range or lower?

    In case it’s not possible, what can I do to ensure a nominal voltage of 3.7 volts from the two AA batteries?

    7

    You have a few options; look into “Buck Converter” or “Step Down Converter” and you can supply a variable amount and set it to output 3.7v

    Or look into purchasing a similar battery locally (3.7v is VERY common…it’s what cell phone batteries, vaporizers, RC cars, etc use - you should be able to obtain one pretty easily)

    8

    Ooh yes! Indeed !!! Thank you!!