PMS5003, colour display, BluetoothⓇ & cloud

🔘The project involving the 🪴Plantower 🗼PMS5003 digital Particle Concentration Sensor, described in the previous post on 8 April, has progressed further with the addition of embedded firmware using an  ESP32 microcontroller development board, a colour display, and BluetoothⓇ or Wi-Fi options.

The display is a colour TFT touch sensitive display with resolution 240 x 320 pixels, ( see image below ), last used on 5 January 2023.

Version with display using prototyping board 

Particle number per 0.1 litre ( ppdl ) of air and density ( ug/m^3 ) for various particle diameters Ø in microns are displayed. The "Air Quality Index  - AQI" ( 0 to 500 ) is derived from the PM2.5 density figure.  The "Quality" label which is assigned ( GOOD, MODERATE etc ) depends on the AQI. This is the method in common use internationally to quantify air pollution 😷 due to particulates. The touch-sensitive 'buttons' near the lower edge of the display give full control of the various modes of operation of the PMS5003. Some modes are initiated by sending instructions to the PMS5003 by serial data, and some are hardwired.

The ESP32 has a built-in BluetoothⓇ Low Energy, ( BLE ), module. The particulate matter data and mode functions as described above are available using the BluetoothⓇ version and the SpacerLabs custom Android App, "SpacerLabs PMD_Viewer vn.nn", on a compatible mobile device 📱having BluetoothⓇ enabled.

App user interface opened

Ubidots is a cloud hosted repository for measurement data. It was featured in this blog before, on 29 February,  then being used with the AQM device. The ESP32 also has a built-in Wi-Fi module. So a version of the firmware including Wi-Fi functionality was written, enabling the PMS5003 measurement data to be uploaded to the cloud.

PMS5003 Ubidots dashboard - ( click to enlarge )

An 'Air Quality' device, i.e., the Plantower PMS5003 Particulate Matter Sensor', has been added to our Ubidots dashboard together with several new widgets for displaying the particle measurements. A similar exercise was carried out with Thingspeak cloud; see also 18 February 2024. Search for channels by user ID spacerlabs to see the result.

The serial communications interface ( see 8 April 2024 ) is still retained, and is a common feature of all versions.