The Official Raspberry Pi Projects Book - Projects_Book_v4

Review

(^192) The Official Raspberry Pi Projects Book raspberrypi.org/magpi
Review
Turn
your Pi into
a Lilliputian
ghetto
blaster
Pimoroni
Maker
Says
SPEAKER PHAT
SPEAKER PHAT
imoroni’s Speaker pHAT
may not sound all that
phat, but it does offer
a neat way to quickly add audio
to your projects. This Pi Zero-
sized board manages to cram
in a mini speaker, I^2 S DAC, and
mono amplifier. We particularly
appreciate the 1980s boombox-
style art on the top of the board,
complete with a ten-LED bar graph.
Since the 8 Ω speaker has just
2 W of power, you won’t exactly
be rocking the neighbourhood. It
sounds more like a tinny transistor
radio than a ghetto blaster,
offering little in the way of bass
(and obviously no stereo), so it’s
certainly no rival for high-quality
audio add-ons from the likes of
IQaudIO and JustBoom. But then
that’s not what it’s intended for;
instead, it should prove suitable for
projects that require audio output
for notification sounds or speech.
Indeed, it would be ideal for the
digital whoopee cushion in this
book (see page 102), precluding the
need to wire up a separate powered
speaker. Other use cases include
a retro gaming handheld or – by
pairing it with a mini microphone

• a DIY voice assistant based on
  Amazon Alexa or the like.
  The Speaker pHAT comes in kit
  form, requiring about 30 minutes to
  assemble. First, you need to screw
  the speaker to the rear of the board,
  using tiny spacer nuts, which is a
  little fiddly. Then it’s time to get
  the soldering iron out. Soldering
  the speaker’s two terminals to the
  board contacts with the supplied
  24 AWG wire is a bit awkward and
  you need to use tweezers to hold
  the bare wire as it gets hot! It’s
  then simply a matter of soldering
  on the 40-pin female header and
  the pHAT is ready to use.
  Installation of the software is
  achieved with a single Terminal

command. It should then work as

the default audio output, although

you may need to reboot the Pi first.

We tested it out with aplay and

mplayer from the command line,

as well as Sonic Pi and YouTube

in the Chromium web browser.

There’s also a library for manually

controlling the LEDs if you want.

A tiny speaker board for adding sound to projects

P

MINI

PORTABLE

SPEAKER

Powered or

charged via USB

and connecting

to the audio

out port of a

standard Pi (but

not Zero), this

mini speaker

packs a punch.

magpi.cc/2diQyHq

Related

£12 / $16

magpi.cc/2kXdZsE

£12 / $13

Last word

Not one for audiophiles,

the „peaĩer pBe‰ oýers

rudimentary sound quality

with little power. It is

nevertheless a great way of

adding audio to projects, with

its tiny Zero-size footprint and

no need for a separate power

supply. It looks cute too.

It is nevertheless a great way

of adding audio to projects