ENS160 (+AHT21 combo)
Also known as: ENS160 · ENS160+AHT21 · Air quality
The $4 air-quality combo board that's suddenly everywhere: ENS160 VOC/AQI plus an AHT21 for the compensation it needs, on one purple PCB. Great value if you understand what it does and doesn't measure.
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At a glance
⚑ flag an error| Measures | voc, co2 |
|---|---|
| Accuracy | eCO2 is ESTIMATED from VOC — not a real CO2 measurement |
| Interface | I2C @ 0x52 / 0x53 |
| Supply | 3.3–5 V (module) |
| Battery-viable | No (continuous draw) |
| ESPHome | Native ESPHome component — ens160_i2c |
| Typical price | $3-5 (street, varies) |
Compare all sensor modules in one table →
Which one do I buy?
vs SGP41: Sensirion's index is steadier; the ENS combo wins on price and the bundled T/H. vs SCD41: not comparable — one measures CO2, the other guesses it.
Clone check
Good for
Gotchas to know
- The 'eCO2' output is derived from VOC — it will happily report normal CO2 in a room full of sleeping people. For real CO2, buy an SCD4x.
- MUST be fed temperature/humidity compensation (the onboard AHT21 exists for this) or TVOC/eCO2 are junk.
- Needs a warm-up/burn-in period after first power-on before readings settle.
Wiring it up
It's I2C, so it shares two pins with every other I2C sensor you own — chain your climate/light/CO2 stack on one bus and mind the address clashes (this one lives at 0x52 / 0x53). Any ESP32 dev board works.