Adafruit has a number of options for temperature and humidity sensors. Most of them use I2C to communicate (the exception is the DHT22, which uses a special one-wire data protocol). Some of these sensors are supposed to be more accurate than others, which may be true, and some are supposed to be faster at data acquisition than others, which is definitely true. I decided to compare sensors using a Raspberry Pi 3 for sensor control and data acquisition and a fairly powerful laptop running R to do the analysis.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
> One thing to note, though, is that the Chinese BME280 uses 0x76 for the default address, unlike “real” BME280s, which use 0x77. This makes me suspicious that I don’t have the real Bosch chip on the board, which is the reason I’ve ordered “real” BME280s from Adafruit. If you use the Chinese version, you have to change the address in the BME280 code.
The I2C address of BME280 is configurable to be either 0x76 or 0x77 based on the value at the SDO pin. When using a breakout board, this would usually depend on the design of that particular board, so there’s no sense in which a BME280 set to the address 0x76 is not “real.” The author’s Chinese BME280 breakout board could, of course, contain a fake chip, but the address used does not suggest that in any way.
From the article:
> One thing to note, though, is that the Chinese BME280 uses 0x76 for the default address, unlike “real” BME280s, which use 0x77. This makes me suspicious that I don’t have the real Bosch chip on the board, which is the reason I’ve ordered “real” BME280s from Adafruit. If you use the Chinese version, you have to change the address in the BME280 code.
The I2C address of BME280 is configurable to be either 0x76 or 0x77 based on the value at the SDO pin. When using a breakout board, this would usually depend on the design of that particular board, so there’s no sense in which a BME280 set to the address 0x76 is not “real.” The author’s Chinese BME280 breakout board could, of course, contain a fake chip, but the address used does not suggest that in any way.