HOW TO SET UP THE DHT11 HUMIDITY SENSOR ON AN ARDUINO

The DHT11 humidity and temperature sensor makes it really easy to add humidity and temperature data
to your DIY electronics projects. It’s perfect for remote weather stations, home environmental control
systems, and farm or garden monitoring systems.

In this tutorial, I’ll first go into a little background about humidity, then I’ll explain how the DHT11
measures humidity. After that, I’ll show you how to connect the DHT11 to an Arduino and give you some
example code so you can use the DHT11 in your own projects.

BONUS: I made a quick start guide for this tutorial that you can download and go back to later if you
can’t set this up right now. It covers all of the steps, diagrams, and code you need to get started.

Here are the ranges and accuracy of the DHT11:

 Humidity Range: 20-90% RH

 Humidity Accuracy: ±5% RH
 Temperature Range: 0-50 °C
 Temperature Accuracy: ±2% °C
 Operating Voltage: 3V to 5.5V

The DHT11 Datasheet:

DHT11 Datasheet

WHAT IS RELATIVE HUMIDITY?

The DHT11 measures relative humidity. Relative humidity is the amount of water vapor in air vs. the
saturation point of water vapor in air. At the saturation point, water vapor starts to condense and
accumulate on surfaces forming dew.

The saturation point changes with air temperature. Cold air can hold less water vapor before it becomes
saturated, and hot air can hold more water vapor before it becomes saturated.

The formula to calculate relative humidity is:

RH=(PW/PS)*100%

RH=relative humidity

PW=density of water vapor

PS= density of water vapor at saturation

Relative humidity is expressed as a percentage. At 100% RH, condensation occurs, and at 0% RH, the air
is completely dry.

HOW THE DHT11 MEASURES HUMIDITY AND TEMPERATURE

The DHT11 detects water vapor by measuring the electrical resistance between two electrodes. The
humidity sensing component is a moisture holding substrate with electrodes applied to the surface.
When water vapor is absorbed by the substrate, ions are released by the substrate which increases the
conductivity between the electrodes. The change in resistance between the two electrodes is
proportional to the relative humidity. Higher relative humidity decreases the resistance between the
electrodes, while lower relative humidity increases the resistance between the electrodes.

The DHT11 measures temperature with a surface mounted NTC temperature sensor (thermistor) built
into the unit. To learn more about how thermistors work and how to use them on the Arduino, check
out our Arduino Thermistor Temperature Sensor Tutorial.

With the plastic housing removed, you can see the electrodes applied to the substrate:
An IC mounted on the back of the unit converts the resistance measurement to relative humidity. It also
stores the calibration coefficients, and controls the data signal transmission between the DHT11 and the
Arduino:
The DHT11 uses just one signal wire to transmit data to the Arduino. Power comes from separate 5V and
ground wires. A 10K Ohm pull-up resistor is needed between the signal line and 5V line to make sure the
signal level stays high by default (see the datasheet for more info).

There are two different versions of the DHT11 you might come across. One type has four pins, and the
other type has three pins and is mounted to a small PCB. The PCB mounted version is nice because it
includes a surface mounted 10K Ohm pull up resistor for the signal line. Here are the pin outs for both
versions:
HOW TO SET UP THE DHT11 ON AN ARDUINO

Wiring the DHT11 to the Arduino is really easy, but the connections are different depending on which
type you have.

CONNECTING A THREE PIN DHT11:

CONNECTING A FOUR PIN DHT11:

R1: 10K Ohm pull up resistor

DISPLAY HUMIDITY AND TEMPERATURE ON THE SERIAL MONITOR

Before you can use the DHT11 on the Arduino, you’ll need to install the DHTLib library. It has all the
functions needed to get the humidity and temperature readings from the sensor. It’s easy to install, just
download the DHTLib.zip file below and open up the Arduino IDE. Then go to Sketch>Include
Library>Add .ZIP Library and select the DHTLib.zip file.

After it’s installed, upload this example program to the Arduino and open the serial monitor:

#include <dht.h>

dht DHT;

#define DHT11_PIN 7

void setup(){

Serial.begin(9600);

void loop()

int chk = DHT.read11(DHT11_PIN);

Serial.print("Temperature = ");

Serial.println(DHT.temperature);

Serial.print("Humidity = ");

Serial.println(DHT.humidity);

delay(1000);

You should see the humidity and temperature readings displayed at one second intervals.

If you don’t want to use pin 7 for the data signal, you can change the pin number in line 5 where it
says #define DHT11_PIN 7.

DISPLAY HUMIDITY AND TEMPERATURE ON AN LCD

A nice way to display the humidity and temperature readings is on a 16X2 LCD. To do this, first follow
our tutorial on How to Set Up an LCD Display on an Arduino, then upload this code to the Arduino:

#include <dht.h>

#include <LiquidCrystal.h>
LiquidCrystal lcd(12, 11, 5, 4, 3, 2);

dht DHT;

#define DHT11_PIN 7

void setup(){

lcd.begin(16, 2);

void loop()

int chk = DHT.read11(DHT11_PIN);

lcd.setCursor(0,0);

lcd.print("Temp: ");

lcd.print(DHT.temperature);

lcd.print((char)223);

lcd.print("C");

lcd.setCursor(0,1);

lcd.print("Humidity: ");

lcd.print(DHT.humidity);

lcd.print("%");

delay(1000);

USING THE DATA IN OTHER PROGRAMS

What if you don’t want to output the actual humidity and temperature readings, but need them to
calculate or control other things? The code below is the bare minimum needed to initialize the sensor.
You can add this to existing programs and use DHT.humidity and DHT.temperature as variables in
any function.

#include <dht.h>

dht DHT;

#define DHT11_PIN 7

void setup(){

void loop()

int chk = DHT.read11(DHT11_PIN);

delay(1000);

To see an example of using the DHT11 sensor outputs as variables in other functions, check out our
article How to Set Up an Ultrasonic Range Finder on an Arduino, where we use the DHT.humidity and
DHT.temperature variables in a formula that improves the accuracy of an ultrasonic range finder.