Terrarium Monitor

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We have got ourselves a terrarium. Not me, a family member.

Frogs, apparently, are very sensitive to toxins and aerosols. They asked me about it and I thought of using something Arduino-like to monitor temp/humidity using something like a DHT11.

What about someone spraying flyspray? I thought something like a hydrocarbon detector would probably work since that’s the propellant used in these things.

Anyone been across this kind of think before? I can’t imagine it would be too hard.

Gerard

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Hey @Gerard163258,

Your intuition would be correct, this is a pretty common type of project, and quite interesting too!

There are a couple of different sensors and methods you could use. I like your idea of the DHT11, quite a cheap solution. I am not personally super knowledgeable about VOCs and air quality in general, but we do offer some really cool air-quality sensors that span a range of different prices and capabilities, some even manufactured in-house!

Here’s a link to our Gas & Smoke sensors page on our website.

You could absolutely pair this with an automated air-freshening system, my brain automatically thinks of those classic cam-pumps, where a servo can be used to pump an air-freshener or otherwise, might not work very well though given the nature of what its used for.

Interested to see where this goes!

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Hi Gerard,

One option could be a BME680 Environmental Sensor Module not only are they capable of measuring temperature and humidity, in my experience they are absolutely capable of measuring when an aerosol has been sprayed nearby.

The only thing to consider would be the humidity limitations of the sensor anything above ~80% will shorten its light significantly.

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Thanks for that Zach & Dan.

I’ll get some samples from Core and see what I can break!

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