DS18B20 Digital temperature sensor + extras

These 1-wire digital temperature sensors are fairly precise (+-0.5C over much of the range) and can give up to 12 bits of precision from the onboard digital-to-analog converter. They work great with any microcontroller using a single digital pin, and you can even connect multiple ones to the same pin, each one has a unique 64-bit ID burned in at the factory to differentiate them. Usable with 3.0-5.0V systems. 

The only downside is they use the Dallas 1-Wire protocol, which is somewhat complex, and requires a bunch of code to parse out the communication. There's a great Arduino library for 1-Wire, but some microcontrollers do not have support for 1-Wire so be sure to check! 

We toss in a 4.7k resistor, which is required as a pullup from the DATA to VCC line when using the sensor. We don't have a detailed tutorial up yet but you can get started by using the Dallas Temperature Control Arduino library which requires also the OneWire Library.

Technical specs:

• Usable temperature range: -55 to 125C (-67F to +257F)
• 9 to 12 bit selectable resolution
• Uses 1-Wire interface- requires only one digital pin for communication
• Unique 64 bit ID burned into chip
• Multiple sensors can share one pin
• Plus or minus 0.5C Accuracy from -10C to +85C
• Temperature-limit alarm system
• Query time is less than 750ms
• Usable with 3.0V to 5.5V power/data

DS18B20 Datasheet