What's the Difference between the BMP280 and the BME280 Atmospheric Sensors?

BMP280 is a barometric pressure sensor that measures air pressure and temperature. In contrast to the BME280, which monitors air pressure, temperature, and humidity, the BMP280 just measures air pressure and temperature. The unit's low power consumption and small size enable the implementation of battery-powered devices such as watches, GPS devices, and mobile phones. MBP280 additionally supports SPI and I2C connection and functions as a precision altimeter.

BME280 is a precision environmental sensor that measures humidity, temperatures, and barometric pressures. The device syndicates high exactitude and linearity and is impeccably practical for high EMC sturdiness and long-term stability. 

BMP280 Pinout

BME280 Pinout

BMP280 Applications

You may be wondering where the BMP280 sensor comes in handy. Because of its characteristics and capabilities, such as SPI and I2C compatibility, the BMP280 sensor is ideal for weather and environmental sensing. Some of the BMP280's applications are listed below.

• Monitoring of fitness

• Control of home automation

• Forecast of weather

• Indoor  navigation (elevator detection, floor detection)

• Outdoor navigation (sports and leisure applications)

• Indicating vertical velocity

• GPS navigation enhancement (dead-reckoning, detection of slopes, etc)

• Applications relating to health care i.e. spirometry

• All other projects requiring the appropriate reading of the atmospheric pressure

BME280 Applications

You might be wondering where the BME280 sensor can be used. Because of its characteristics and capabilities, such as SPI and I2C compatibility, the BME280 sensor is ideal for weather and environmental sensing. Some of the BME280's uses are listed below.

• Monitoring of fitness

• Control of home automation

• Forecast of weather

• Indoor or outdoor navigation

• GPS navigation enhancement

• All other projects requiring the appropriate reading of the atmospheric pressure

Bosch Sensortec GmbH is a fully owned subsidiary of Robert Bosch GmbH dedicated to the world of consumer electronics; offering a complete portfolio of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) based sensors and solutions that enable mobile devices to feel and sense the world around them. Bosch Sensortec develops and markets a broad portfolio of MEMS sensors, solutions, and systems for applications in smartphones, tablets, wearable devices, and various products within the IoT (Internet of Things).

Looking at the rear of the PCB, it seems the purple PCB may be the “genuine” and the blue PCB a “clone” – notice the poor printing by comparison and the M which became I1. Regardless, it seems the PCB was designed for BME280 and BMP280 – the black dot on the left module on the P text indicates it’s a BMP280. This was, however, confusing to the seller who insisted this meant it was a BME280 as the E was showing. The purple module on the right didn’t have any marks.

You can use the environmental sensor Grove-BME280 with different microcontrollers such as Arduino, LinkIt ONE, and Beaglebone. You can achieve this through SPI or I2C. For our example today, we will be explaining to you how to connect your Grove environmental sensor BM280 to the Arduino.

Step by Step Guide

Step One: Connect the BME280 sensor to touch the Grove Base Shield V2 I2C port. After that, plug or insert it into Seeeduino. However, if you lack a Grove Base Shield, the module can be connected directly to the Seeeduino.

Step Two: Using a USB cable, connect Seeeduino to the PC

Step Three: Here is the software aspect of the tutorial. First of all, visit Github to download the example and library code.

Step Four: Create a brand new sketch for the Arduino and then paste some codes to it. You can also get access to the code directly just by following this path: File – Example – Barometer_Sensor – Barometer_Sensor.

Step Five: This step requires that you upload this code gotten in step five into your Arduino

Step Six: Open the serial monitor in order to receive the data of the sensor, which includes humidity, altitude, the value of barometric pressure, and temperature.

Finally, you can know the difference between bmp280 vs bme280 just by inspecting the package visually. If you check the datasheet of the BME280, you will see the markings for devices requiring mass production. This marking has to have ??? U? format. Here, the U signifies BME280. Now, the last ? you are seeing here just a P, while the final two characters are supposed to be UP.

Compared with the datasheet of BMP280, the format ought to be ??? K?. Here, the final “?” should be either W, N, U, or P. Therefore, KW, KN, KU, and KP are all devices of BMP280.

BME180, BMP280, HTU21D

BMP280 datasheet

BME280 datasheet

If you try to buy a Bosch Sensortec BME280 module on eBay, there’s a good chance you will get the lesser BMP280 instead. The reason seems to be sellers that don’t know what they are selling, a supply chain that doesn’t understand the difference between a BME280 and the BMP280, and a PCB break-out design that is shared between the two types of sensors. As a result, buying these sensors can get quite frustrating, as the sellers often get away with them.

If you want to be sure you get what you ordered, you’ll probably have to spend quite a bit more for a proper module from the likes of Adafruit, where everything is clearly labeled and controlled.