A Raspberry Pi air quality monitor was described in  Hackspace magazine issue 21.

It can use any Raspberry Pi and is said to be easy to wire wrap using a SDS011 sensor.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation explains why they’d selected the SDS011.

“Firstly, it’s cheap enough for many makers to be able to buy and build with. Secondly, it’s been reasonably well studied for accuracy. Both the hackAIR and InfluencAir projects have compared the readings from these sensors with more expensive, better-tested sensors, and the results have come back favourably.”