Environmental Monitoring with Arduino

Chapter 7. Project: Humidity, Temperature & Dew Point/4Char Display

Weather may be the most fundamental experience we have of the natural world. Every day we make decisions based on present and near-future environmental conditions: Do I need a coat? Should I bring an umbrella? Can I bicycle to work, or do I need to catch the train?

You Don’t Have to Be a Weatherman to Measure the Weather

We put a lot of effort into controlling how the weather affects us. We build structures that shield us from rain, snow, wind, and sun. We create all sorts of specialty textiles, and use them in complex garments to protect ourselves from the elements when we go outdoors. And we use lots of electricity to power systems that keep us comfortably warm or cool, as well as devices that put moisture into the air or suck it dry.

Weather is so important to our personal and economic well-being that a government agency is devoted to doing nothing but predicting and tracking the weather and keeping the public informed. One of the most popular channels on cable TV devotes almost every hour of every day to reporting nothing but weather. Dozens of computer, smartphone, and tablet apps exist to do one thing: hook us into the latest info about the weather.

In other words, it’s high time makers take on some independent monitoring of the weather. With Arduino, we can measure the basics: temperature, humidity, and dew point. Further, we can collect these measurements over time to create a weather record by saving the data ...