Breathe easy, knowing that you can track and sense the quality of the air around you with this Adafruit PMSA003I Air Quality Breakout. This sensor is great for monitoring air quality, in a compact plug-in format.
Best of all, unlike almost all other sensors we've seen that are UART interface, this one is I2C interface, which makes it a great match for single-board Linux computers like Raspberry Pi, or even plain Arduino UNO's that normally would use software serial.
If you're an I2C fan (who isn't?), we've included two of our handy dandy SparkFun Qwiic compatible STEMMA QT connectors for the I2C bus so you don't even need to solder! Plug and play with other 'QT boards and sensors to add quick air quality sensing. QT Cable is not included, but we have a variety in the shop.
This sensor uses laser scattering to radiate suspending particles in the air, then collects scattering light to obtain the curve of scattering light change with time. The microprocessor calculates equivalent particle diameter and the number of particles with different diameters per unit volume.
The I2C data stream updates once per second, you'll get:
- PM1.0, PM2.5 and PM10.0 concentration in both standard & environmental units
- Particulate matter per 0.1L air, categorized into 0.3um, 0.5um, 1.0um, 2.5um, 5.0um, and 10um size bins
- As well as checksum, in binary format.
Each order comes with one fully assembled sensor module breakout, including some header if you'd like to solder it to a breadboard. The breakout board has a 5V mini boost circuit so you can power it from 3.3V and 5V and the motor will run just fine
Lastly, it wouldn't be an Adafruit breakout if it didn't come with libraries for Arduino and CircuitPython or Python that will read and checksum data and print it out in human-readable format.
