The DHT11 is a basic, ultra low-cost digital temperature and humidity sensor. It uses a capacitive humidity sensor and a thermistor to measure the surrounding air, and sends a digital signal on the data pin(no analog input pins needed). It's fairly simple to use, but requires careful timing to collect data. The only real downside of this sensor is you can only get new data from it once every 2 seconds, so when using the library, sensor readings can be up to 2 seconds old.