SparkFun Air Quality Sensor - SGP30 (Qwiic) Hookup Guide

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Contributors: El Duderino, Englandsaurus
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Introduction

Do you want to know the quality of the air in your room or house? Maybe you need to monitor the volatile organic compounds emitted during a 3D Print so you know when to turn on some ventilation (or leave the room!). The SparkFun Air Quality Sensor - SGP30 (Qwiic) may be just the sensor you need! Indoor air quality (referred to as IAQ) sensors are great for measuring CO2 and volatile organic compounts (commonly referred to as VOCs) but some of them like the CCS811 require a burn-in time of 48 hours and a 20-min start up time. By comparison, the SGP30 can return valid IAQ readings within 15 seconds of powering up!

Along with a very quick start-up time, the SGP30 is very resistant to contamination from other gases to ensure low drift and long-term stability for extremely reliable results. To cap it all off, you can also read the SGP30's raw measurements of ethanol and H2. The SGP30 communicates via I2C so naturally we broke out the pins on the sensor to Qwiic connectors so you can easily connect it to SparkFun's ever growing Qwiic Ecosystem!

SparkFun Air Quality Sensor - SGP30 (Qwiic)

SEN-16531
1 Retired

In this guide we will go over the features of the SGP30, how to connect and use it as well as an Arduino library with examples to get you started monitoring your indoor air quality.

Required Materials

To follow along with this guide you will need a microcontroller to communicate with the SGP30. Below are a few options that come Qwiic-enabled out of the box:

SparkFun Thing Plus - ESP32 WROOM (Micro-B)

SparkFun Thing Plus - ESP32 WROOM (Micro-B)

WRL-15663
$22.50
13
SparkFun RedBoard Qwiic

SparkFun RedBoard Qwiic

DEV-15123
$21.50
19
SparkFun Qwiic Pro Micro - USB-C (ATmega32U4)

SparkFun Qwiic Pro Micro - USB-C (ATmega32U4)

DEV-15795
$21.50
10
SparkFun RedBoard Artemis

SparkFun RedBoard Artemis

DEV-15444
$21.50
10

If your chosen microcontroller is not already Qwiic-enabled, you can add that functionality with one or more of the following items:

SparkFun Qwiic Cable Kit

SparkFun Qwiic Cable Kit

KIT-15081
$8.95
21
SparkFun Qwiic Adapter

SparkFun Qwiic Adapter

DEV-14495
$1.60
4
SparkFun Qwiic Shield for Arduino

SparkFun Qwiic Shield for Arduino

DEV-14352
$7.50
9
SparkFun Qwiic Shield for Arduino Nano

SparkFun Qwiic Shield for Arduino Nano

DEV-16789
$4.95

You will also need at least one Qwiic cable to connect your sensor to your microcontroller.

Qwiic Cable - 50mm

Qwiic Cable - 50mm

PRT-14426
$0.95
Qwiic Cable - 100mm

Qwiic Cable - 100mm

PRT-14427
$1.50

Qwiic Cable - 500mm

PRT-14429
1 Retired

Qwiic Cable - 200mm

PRT-14428
Retired

Suggested Reading

If you aren't familiar with the Qwiic system, take a look here for an overview.

Qwiic Connect System

We also recommend taking a look at the following tutorials if you aren't familiar with the concepts covered in them. If you are using one of the Qwiic Shields listed above, you may want to read through their respective Hookup Guides as well before you get started with the SparkFun Air Quality Sensor - SGP30 (Qwiic).

I2C

An introduction to I2C, one of the main embedded communications protocols in use today.

Serial Terminal Basics

This tutorial will show you how to communicate with your serial devices using a variety of terminal emulator applications.

Qwiic Shield for Arduino & Photon Hookup Guide

Get started with our Qwiic ecosystem with the Qwiic shield for Arduino or Photon.

SparkFun Qwiic Shield for Arduino Nano Hookup Guide

Hookup Guide for the SparkFun Qwiic Shield for Arduino Nano.