Waveshare WM8960 Hi-Fi Sound Card HAT Stereo CODEC Playing and Recording I2S Interface for Raspberry Pi Zero/Zero W/Zero WH/2B/3B/3B+

I bought two of these units to make locally functioning voice controlled smart devices for automating some functions in my home, using the Wyoming protocols with Home Assistant. It seems to be working. It is handy that this unit comes with a pair of speakers and has stereo mics and stereo output. I am quite pleased with them. Make sure you follow the instructions for installing the drivers.

Very easy to install, as normal Raspberry setup to use ...just follow the instructions from their site . The latest software for Debian had some flow like volume button was not mapped to sound (it was linked to 3D volume) which did not help control sound like easy. Using bookshelf speaker, that Sounds very good. Supplied speaker are ok but not used much, just tested it. Stereo Microphone on the board , not sure how it will work once I put it inside a box.

I installed this HAT on a Raspberry Pi, intending to use it as a voice-control module for a robot. I followed the installation instructions precisely, and I did get several small recording created using the onboard microphones.But the speaker connections refuse to work. I searched all over the Web and found no help. The posts all say "use the command-line alsamixer utility to turn up the volume." I did that, and still no sound.

I used this as a microphone and speaker for using voice commands to contol Home Assistant. I would buy again for sure. The microphone sensitivity is as good or better that the Jabra 410 and 510's I'm using with the Libre LePotato Pi3 clone. The speakers work fine doing text to speech for my use, but would not be for playing music in my opinion. If I can find a 3d printed case for the Pi3 board with the hat I would probably replace the Jabras and have a all-in-one device

Good speakers good quality sound from the speakers but the programming for the board needs a major update could not get it to work I even paid a company to install it could not get it to work the cellar was very hesitant on giving up the right software to use for it I had to give it a star in order to write a review but personally I would give it a negative 50 stars and five stars for the speakers

Beware that the drivers for this are not include with Raspberry Pi OS (formerly known as Raspbian) so be prepared to install them yourself. The instructions are available from the Waveshare website in form of a PDF manual.And basically you have to clone a github repository and then use the provided script which uses dkms to build a driver (downloads kernel headers).And this process does not always work smoothly. I was not able to get it working on the latest buster image and decide to install an older stretch image which finally worked.Other than that headache this seems like a great deal as speakers are included. I am using it as a home doorbell on an old raspberry pi zero to play customized audio over the speakers when someone rings the bell.