Enviro
Enviro senses temperature, pressure, light, local color (RGB channels), accelerometer readings, and magnetometer data using Enviro pHat sensors and Raspberry Pi Zero W
Enviro pHat |
Raspberry Pi Zero W |
The Raspberry Pi Mega Kit includes a Raspberry Pi Zero W with GPIO header attached plus a 16GB MicroSD memory card with the Raspbian operating system installed. You can use your own memory card and download and install Raspbian
Interacting with Raspberry Pi Zero W
Use a miniHDMI-to-HDMI adaptor to connect Enviro to a monitor or TV. Use a microUSB-to-USB adaptor to plug-in a keyboard or mouse. I recommend a USB hub so you can connect both of them. Power Raspberry Pi with a wall plug or a USB battery capable of powering mobile phones.
You can connect remotely using Secure Shell (SSH) but you must enable SSH. Click the raspberry icon on the menu. Select Preferences
, then select Raspberry Pi Configuration
. Click the Interfaces
tab and enable SSH
.
Building your device
Solder a pin header to the EnviroPhat board and snap the board onto your Raspberry Pi. Follow this tutorial to install the EnviroPhat software and test your device.
Known bugs
- As of October 2019, Raspberry Pi Buster operating system may have a WiFi Bug: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=252984
Verifying the version of Python
The Raspbian operating system comes with two versions of Python pre-installed. This tutorial uses Python 3. Verify that this version is installed:
python3 --version
$ Python 3.4.2
pip3 --version
$ pip 1.5.6 from /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages (python 3.4)
Gathering your data
Sensor readings such as temperature and light are easy to understand. Heading is the offset, in degrees, from magnetic north. An accelerometer measures motion. Here are the accelerometer basics
Sending sensor data in csv or json format
Saving sensor data in a MySQL database table
Investigating your data
Charting sensor data on ThingSpeak