A $14 USB Thermometer That Works Well With Linux

[phoronix]

Phoronix: A $14 USB Thermometer That Works Well With Linux

If you are in need of a temperature sensor / thermometer that's USB based and plays well with Linux, there's a decent option for just $14 USD.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=23125

[schmidtbag]

Seems a little pricey for just a thermometer, but I'm personally not aware of cheaper linux-compatible alternatives either. Personally, I'd rather just get an ATTiny45 with a thermistor and hook it up to a serial connection, though that's obviously less convenient.

Since I have electric heat, I intend to retire my gaming computer at some point and use it as a "productive radiator" where I'll overclock it higher than it is now and have it run BOINC to generate heat. Using an external thermometer like this (or the one I mentioned) would be a good way to regulate room temperature without me being around.

[xchris]

Amazon UK sells this for almost half price £4.99 ($ 7.23) (UK based seller anyway),

[rohcQaH]

That might be something I'd consider hooking up to a few Raspberry PIs scattered around the house. Does it advertise itself as a low-power USB device?

Although obviously I'd prefer something that can measure humidity as well. Maybe CO2 levels. Smoke. Chemical Agents. I'm asking too much, right?

[schmidtbag]

That might be something I'd consider hooking up to a few Raspberry PIs scattered around the house. Does it advertise itself as a low-power USB device?

Although obviously I'd prefer something that can measure humidity as well. Maybe CO2 levels. Smoke. Chemical Agents. I'm asking too much, right?

The RPi comes with GPIO pins. Why not take advantage of them rather than get a USB adapter? If you want a cheap way to monitor temperature throughout your house over a network, something like C.H.I.P. would be a better option. You could also get an arduino with bluetooth or a wifi shield. The arduino could also handle the other stuff you want to measure.

[Deavir]

That might be something I'd consider hooking up to a few Raspberry PIs scattered around the house. Does it advertise itself as a low-power USB device?

Although obviously I'd prefer something that can measure humidity as well. Maybe CO2 levels. Smoke. Chemical Agents. I'm asking too much, right?

Not CO2 or smoke but:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Raspberry-Pi-Temperature-Humidity-Network-Monitor/

[Marc1n]

That might be something I'd consider hooking up to a few Raspberry PIs scattered around the house. Does it advertise itself as a low-power USB device?

Although obviously I'd prefer something that can measure humidity as well. Maybe CO2 levels. Smoke. Chemical Agents. I'm asking too much, right?

Why not use BME280 module? It has humidity, pressure and temperature sensors, and Adafruit sells nice breakout board for it. RPi is equipped with i2c bus so it will also be easy to connect. Fot the rest - Co2 sensors cost a lot. Sensors for smoke and certain chemicals are cheap but they require some electronic knowledge to connect.

[Spacefish]

It´s a pretty bad design.. The temperature is measured next to the USB-Port.. It´s not a good measurement of ambient temperature..
The price is very high as well..
Better design would be a SHT21 sensor on a wire and a USB <-> SPI converter (like a USB-Capable ATTiny) for ~2$ so the whole thing would cost ~5$, has a very good absolute and relative temperature resolution and meassures humidity aswell!

Another solution is just a OneWire based Temperature sensor, connected to the serial port.. Costs ~1$ and works with just 2 resistors and the sensor. We used this setup in a datacenter to monitor temperature, it was pretty easy.

[Tomin]

a USB-Capable ATTiny

There is no such thing AFAIK. No AtTiny has hardware USB support. V-USB (software based USB for AVR) can be used of course and should work nicely for this kind of application.

I'm thinking of making a 1-Wire host with V-USB using AtTiny85 (and if that is not capable enough, then I use some bigger AVR). It would be cheaper than using a full Arduino for just this one purpose like I'm doing now.

[Deavir]

It´s a pretty bad design.. The temperature is measured next to the USB-Port.. It´s not a good measurement of ambient temperature..
The price is very high as well..
Better design would be a SHT21 sensor on a wire and a USB <-> SPI converter (like a USB-Capable ATTiny) for ~2$ so the whole thing would cost ~5$, has a very good absolute and relative temperature resolution and meassures humidity aswell!

Another solution is just a OneWire based Temperature sensor, connected to the serial port.. Costs ~1$ and works with just 2 resistors and the sensor. We used this setup in a datacenter to monitor temperature, it was pretty easy.

He mentioned using an usb extension. It is also nice to have a cheap solution that can just be thrown out if it doesn't work. No need for multi-meters or soldering irons is a good feature and this is coming from someone that worked on sensors for industrial test machines.