BME280 Breakout - Temperature, Pressure, Humidity Sensor

by Pimoroni

A really nice environmental sensor that's ideal for indoor monitoring of temperature, pressure, and humidity, or even outdoors in a suitable enclosure. It's Raspberry Pi and Arduino-compatible.

We use this sensor on our Enviro+ environmental monitoring board, but it's such a nice sensor that we thought we'd pop it onto a breakout! The BME280 is a great sensor for monitoring conditions around your home. If you're an iOS user, then there's a Homebridge plugin for the BME280 to let you use the sensor for home automation and monitoring.

This breakout is compatible with our fancy Breakout Garden system, where using breakouts is as easy just popping it into one of the six slots and starting to grow your project, create, and code. BME280 breakouts manufactured after April 2022 are also Qw/ST compatible so you can use them with a whole host of different microcontrollers and HATs with Qwiic or STEMMA QT connectors.

Features

  • Bosch BME280 temperature, pressure, humidity sensor (datasheet)
  • I2C interface, with address select via cuttable ADDR trace (0x76 or 0x77)
  • Qwiic/STEMMA QT connector
  • 3.3V or 5V compatible
  • Reverse polarity protection (on Breakout Garden connector)
  • Raspberry Pi-compatible pinout (pins 1, 3, 5, 7, 9)
  • Compatible with Arduino
  • Compatible with Raspberry Pi (Python library)
  • Compatible with Raspberry Pi Pico (C++/MicroPython libraries)
  • Schematic

Kit includes

  • BME280 breakout
  • 1x5 male header
  • 1x5 female right angle header

We've designed this breakout board so that you can solder on the piece of right angle female header and pop it straight onto the bottom left 5 pins on your Raspberry Pi's GPIO header (pins 1, 3, 5, 7, 9). The right angle header also has the advantage of positioning the breakout away from the Pi's CPU so as to minimise radiated heat.

Software

We've put together a Python library for using the BME280 sensor with a Raspberry Pi, with handy functions to read all of the values, and a few nice little examples.

You can also use this breakout with Raspberry Pi Pico and other RP2040 boards, using C++ or Pirate brand MicroPython or CircuitPython.

Notes

  • In our testing, we've found that the sensor requires some burn-in time (at least 20 minutes) and that readings may take a couple of minutes to stabilise after beginning measurements
  • The trace on the back (marked ADDR) can be cut to change the I2C address from the default of 0x76 to 0x77, meaning that you can use up to two sensors on the same Raspberry Pi or Arduino.
  • The BME280, BME68X, and BMP280 breakouts all share the same I2C addresses, so if you're using two together then you'll need to change the I2C address on one of them using the cuttable trace.
  • Dimensions: 19x19x4.7mm (LxWxH, including connectors)

63 customer reviews

8 months ago
I'm learning micro python so at first I had problems to have it reading data, but after a few tries it worked. I noticed that the first sensor read has the pressure and temperature incorrect and it must be discharged. The second read give the data correctly.
by Diego about BME280 Breakout - Temperature, Pressure, Humidity Sensor via REVIEWS.io
a year ago
A really neat and easy to use sensor package. Shouldnt take more than an hour to familiarise yourself with it as the library for it is pretty robust and easy to use. Added it to a project of mine (circuit python) and it works just as expected. I really like it!
by Sony about BME280 Breakout - Temperature, Pressure, Humidity Sensor via REVIEWS.io
2 years ago
A great little sensor that is almost 'plug and play'. Just plug it into a board like the Pico Breakout Garden and download the example program to get it going. You really don't need to do much yourself. That said, more accessible, improved documentation, detailing the methods used to set up the device and access data would help deepen understanding of the device and how to develop and modify applications using it.
by Robert about BME280 Breakout - Temperature, Pressure, Humidity Sensor via REVIEWS.io
2 years ago
Useful sensor with a choice of connectors for soldering. Worked seamlessly with a Pico W. Found the literature and information on the Pimoroni website somewhat arcane and less than straightforward to access, but plenty of help available on YouTube
by Robert about BME280 Breakout - Temperature, Pressure, Humidity Sensor via REVIEWS.io
2 years ago
Bought the BME280 breakout as a replacement for the BME280 sensor on an Enviro+ board that had gone awry. After checking with the excellent Pimoroni forum for help, I soldered the board to the GPIO header on the Enviro+ with the supplied header pins. I made use of the address selection trace on the back BME280 breakout board. All now works and is up and running the Luftdaten python script with a small change to the code to allow for the address change to 0x77. Great service from Pimoroni, ordered on Tuesday and arrived on Thursday.
by Mike about BME280 Breakout - Temperature, Pressure, Humidity Sensor via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
Instructions on how to use it and set up are good. Got it all working without hassle and used it as a project to team my kids to solder, which went well. Readings seem to be accurate and correspond with other local weather stations in the year.
by John about BME280 Breakout - Temperature, Pressure, Humidity Sensor via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
Works fine using the Adafruit_BME280.h and Adafruit_Sensor.h libraries. Needs a little calibration on humidity I think but I need to check against something I can confirm is accurate also I need to compare the pressure reading But otherwise the temperature is spot on with. I happy with it.
by Peter about BME280 Breakout - Temperature, Pressure, Humidity Sensor via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
The sensor is excellent, and when combined with the on-board level shifter it is so easy to interface to a standard 5V microprocessor. Since I was working with a home designed AT Mega 644 board, I had to write the sensor drivers myself and download suitable I2C drivers, which turned out to be pretty straight forward as all the information is in the datasheet including the algorithms for deriving pressure, temperature and humidity. I've also designed and printed a small enclosure for it since it is external to the main board.
by Douglas about BME280 Breakout - Temperature, Pressure, Humidity Sensor via REVIEWS.io

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