CCS811/BME280 (Qwiic) Environmental Combo Breakout Hookup Guide
Englandsaurus Introduction
The CCS811/BME280 (Qwiic) Environmental Combo Breakout work together to take care of all of your atmospheric quality sensing needs with the CCS811 and BME280 ICs. The CCS811 is an exceedingly popular sensor, providing readings for equivalent CO2 (or eCO2) in the parts per million (PPM) and total volatile organic compounds in the parts per billion (PPB). The CCS811 also has a feature that allows it to fine tune its readings if it has access to the current humidity and temperature. Luckily for us, the BME280 provides humidity, temperature, and barometric pressure! This allows the sensors to work together to give us more accurate readings than they'd be able to provide on their own. We also made it easy to interface with them via I2C.
Required Materials
To get started, you'll need a microcontroller or single board computer to control everything.
Now to get into the Qwiic ecosystem, the key will be one of the following stackable Qwiic boards to match your preference of microcontroller or single board computer:
You will also need a Qwiic cable to connect the shield to your CCS811/BME280, choose a length that suits your needs.
Suggested Reading
If you aren't familiar with the Qwiic system, we recommend reading here for an overview.
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| Qwiic Connect System |
We would also recommend taking a look at the following tutorials if you aren't familiar with them.
Qwiic Shield for Arduino & Photon Hookup Guide
For more information on TVOC and eCO2 readings, check out the following blog post.
If the concepts of pressure are weighing on you, check out these links.
- (external) Air Pressure Altitude Calculator -- Play around to get a feel for what the pressures are at different altitudes.
- Wikipedia: Atmospheric_pressure -- Has a nice equation for conversion of pressure and altitude (referenced for library code).
- MPL3115A2 Pressure Sensor Hookup Guide: Pressure vs Altimeter Setting -- Confused why the reading pressure doesn't match the reported pressure from your local weather station? Read this section.