audiothat

An audiothat is an add-on board designed to enhance or add audio functionality to single-board computers, most notably those that follow the Raspberry Pi Hardware Attached on Top (HAT) standard. These boards typically stack onto the main board’s GPIO header and integrate digital-to-analog converters (DACs), analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), amplifiers, and various audio interfaces to improve sound quality or enable new audio capabilities.

Common features of audiothats include stereo DACs or ADCs, headphone or line-level outputs, microphone inputs, and sometimes built-in amplification. They connect to the host via digital audio interfaces such as I2S or PCM and may include level-shifting circuitry to match the logic and voltage levels of the host platform. Many audiothats also incorporate a small power regulator and a memory device to identify the board to the operating system, facilitating driver loading and automatic configuration on compatible systems.

In practice, audiothats are used for high-quality music playback, voice capture for assistants or teleconferencing, and experimental audio projects in educational or maker environments. They are commonly deployed with Linux-based SBCs, where device tree overlays or kernel drivers expose the audio hardware to software such as ALSA or PulseAudio.

Variants range from simple line-out boards to more feature-rich options offering microphone arrays, digital interfaces, and DSP processing. While the Raspberry Pi HAT form factor is the most common platform, audiothats may also exist as standalone add-ons for other SBC ecosystems or as USB-based audio solutions.