A friend bought a couple of Sensirion SEN54s and I helped him get one working, and ended up buying the extra from him. It had been a few years since I researched what sensors were out there that worked well with Raspberry Pis, and were more on the industrial side than the hobbyist side. I was immediately enthused by Sensirion’s documentation, and their sensor looked top notch. My friend did all the homework on reading specs and comparing with others, it was really a no brainer.
With this SEN54 we’ve gained:
- accurate humidity (the previous sensor was worthless)
- VOC
- PM1.0
- PM2.5
- PM4.0
- PM10.0
It’ll be interesting to see the patterns. I’m honestly a little worried about what the particles will reveal seeing as we’re running 2 wood stoves in the house for half of the year. Reassuringly, the first few readings show we’re in the green, but then Nicole opened the stove to let out a bunch of grilled cheese sandwiches and the readings skyrocketed well above WHO guidelines for particles.
![](https://ben.akrin.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Screenshot_2024-02-21_at_9_04_18 PM-1024x558.png)
But those are only delicious cheese particles finding their way into your nostrils, surely that can’t have and adverse health effect. Jokes aside it’s interesting to see how much of a tail this benign event has. I’ll be really curious to discover more, I really have no idea what I’m looking at yet.
I am very glad to see the Pis become established as industry capable devices. It’s honestly remarkable what I’ve thrown at them over the years while they kept serving their purpose.