This guide will walk you through making an environmental monitoring device with GPS, Temperature, Humidity, Barometric Pressure, and Air Quality sensors, all updating to the cloud. Once build, this project takes readings occasionally and sends them to Adafruit IO, stamped with time and location. All that is required is an AC outlet and a WiFi network.

All done in CircuitPython with AirLift, our wireless co-processor that makes secure IoT projects a breeze. And we stick it in a cute weatherproof case so it can be deployed anywhere.

While one of these devices is useful to to monitor some environment (say your room, a greenhouse, or a garden area) many of them could be placed around a house or city to monitor conditions in various areas.  This collection of time and location stamped data could be very useful for determining pollution patterns and so forth.

The units are small, lightweight, and have minimal requirements (power and WiFi) so they can be placed almost anywhere for extended periods of time, or moved around.

When the unit starts up, it checks where it is. Every hour, it refreshes the time from AdafruitIO. Periodically it reads all its sensors and sends the readings to AdafuitIO. This is set to happen every 5 minutes in the code, but can be changed as required. The only limitation is that there has to be enough time between readings to let them be sent and AdafruitIO has some limitations on frequency of updates for the free and plus versions.

Parts

Angled shot of a Adafruit Feather M4 Express.
It's what you've been waiting for, the Feather M4 Express featuring ATSAMD51. This Feather is fast like a swift, smart like an owl, strong like a ox-bird (it's half ox,...
$22.95
In Stock
Top view of Adafruit AirLift Breakout Board.
Give your plain ol' microcontroller project a lift with the Adafruit AirLift - a breakout board that lets you use the powerful ESP32 as a WiFi co-processor. You probably...
$9.95
In Stock
Angled shot of long, rectangular GPS-enabled add-on board.
Give your Feather a sense of place, with an Ultimate GPS FeatherWing. In 2013 we designed the Ultimate GPS...
Out of Stock
Adafruit BME280 I2C or SPI Temperature Humidity Pressure Sensor
Bosch has stepped up their game with their new BME280 sensor, an environmental sensor with temperature, barometric pressure and humidity! This sensor is great for all sorts...
$14.95
In Stock
Person soldering next to sensor, which detects the fumes and lights up an LED red
Breathe easy, knowing that you can track and sense the quality of the air around you with the PM2.5 Air Quality Sensor with Breadboard Adapter particulate sensor....
$39.95
In Stock
1 x Pycom Universal IP67 Case
Small, configurable case with knockouts for various connectors. Well sealed if you need it to be.
1 x SMA to uFL/u.FL/IPX/IPEX RF Adapter Cable
To connect the GPS board to an external GPS antenna
1 x Short Headers Kit for Feather
12-pin + 16-pin short female headers for the Feather
1 x Short Feather Male Headers
12-pin and 16-pin short male headers for the GPS wing
1 x Silicone Cover Stranded-Core Ribbon Cable
10 wire 1 meter long - 28AWG black ribbon cable for wiring up the boards

This guide was first published on May 01, 2019. It was last updated on Mar 18, 2024.

This page (Overview) was last updated on Mar 08, 2024.

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