Being the most popular SBC family on the block, the Raspberry Pi lineup is compatible with a host of accessories including Hardware Attached on Top expansion boards. Often referred to as HATs, these are add-on boards that slot into the GPIO pins to bolster the utility of your Raspberry Pi.

Although they’re optional purchases, HATs are quite useful if you love creating new projects with your Raspberry Pi. So, here are nine HATs worth checking out if you’re a Raspberry Pi enthusiast.

• Best Coral Edge TPU adapter HAT

  Pineberry Pi AI HAT

  Thanks to Ollama, it’s possible to LLMs locally on something as small as a Raspberry Pi, though the performance will be quite lackluster. Fortunately, the Pineberry Pi AI HAT lets you connect a Coral Edge TPU to your Raspberry Pi to improve the SBC’s capabilities in AI-driven workloads. Sure, you’ll need to buy a Coral Edge TPU for the HAT, but it’s a worthy investment if you’re into machine learning projects.

  $19 at Amazon
• Multiple displays

  Waveshare Triple Display HAT for Raspberry Pi

  If you’re planning to turn your Raspberry Pi into a standalone system, this triple display HAT from Waveshare is a worthy investment. The HAT comes with a crisp 2-inch main screen, which utilizes the SPI protocol to communicate with your Raspberry Pi. You also get two secondary I2C OLED displays, and you can easily configure them to display the hardware metrics of your RPi.

  $24 at Amazon
• Best speaker HAT

  WM8960 Hi-Fi Sound Card HAT

  Ever wanted your Raspberry Pi to include audio playback capabilities without occupying a USB slot? The WM8960 Hi-Fi Sound Card from Wonrabai is an affordable HAT that adds stereo speakers to your Raspberry Pi. Besides the speakers, it also comes with a built-in audio port, making it a great choice for Raspberry Pi 5 owners who require an AUX connection for their projects.

  $21 at Amazon
• Ideal for pairing NVMe SSDs

  GeeekPi N04 M.2 NVMe to PCIe Adapter

  $15 $23 Save $8

  The PCIe Gen 2 connection is one of the biggest additions to the Raspberry Pi 5, simply because it allows you to attach high-speed PCIe devices to the SBC. That said, you’ll need this GeeekPi N04 adapter before you can pair an NVMe SSD to the RPi 5. Besides providing ventilation holes for better cooling, the HAT also comes with four CNC screws for easy installation.

  $15 at Amazon
• Best Power-Over-Ethernet HAT

  Wonrabai Waveshare POE HAT for Raspberry Pi

  For the uninitiated, Power-over-Ethernet is a facility that leverages the RJ45 port of your Raspberry Pi to supply power to the SBC. Compatible with the 802.3af/at network standard, Wonrabai’s PoE HAT supports a maximum wattage of 25W, enough to drive all peripherals connected to your Raspberry Pi. Better yet, it even comes with a built-in fan to stop your SBC from overheating.

  $29 at Amazon
• Best Motor HAT

  Adafruit DC & Stepper Motor HAT

  The Adafruit DC & Stepper Motor HAT is perfect for those who wish to outfit their robotics projects with a Raspberry Pi. This cheap HAT can connect up to four DC motors to your Raspberry Pi, with each H-bridge capable of supplying 1.2A to said motor. Alternatively, if you want more precision, Adafruit’s offering lets you arm your Raspberry Pi with up to two stepper motors.

  $26 at Amazon
• Best sensor HAT

  Raspberry Pi Sense HAT

  The official Raspberry Pi Sense HAT is the best expansion board if you want to turn your SBC into an all-in-one weather station without going through the hassle of attaching complex sensor modules to the board. Besides including a controller and RGB LED matrix, the Sense HAT also comes with a built-in gyroscope, accelerometer, and magnetometer.

  $54 at Amazon
• Best USB hub HAT

  Wonrabai Waveshare PCIe to USB 3.2 Gen1 HAT

  The USB ports on your Raspberry Pi may be enough for conventional projects, though there’s only so much you can do with just four USB Type-A ports. So, if you’re planning to connect multiple peripherals to the SBC, you might want to check out this HAT from Wonrabai. Although it’s only compatible with the RPi 5, the HAT allows you to expand the SBC’s connectivity with four high-speed USB 3.2 ports.
   

  $27 at Amazon
• Best breakout board HAT

  Freenove Breakout Board for Raspberry Pi

  The GPIO pins on the Raspberry Pi work well for simple projects. But if you’re trying to prototype a complex circuit or work on a difficult project involving multiple sensors, you might want to look into a breakout board. Freenove’s terminal block HAT works well for this purpose and even includes LEDs to denote the status of each GPIO pin.
   

  $12 at Amazon

Recapping our favorite Raspberry Pi HATs

Although buying HATs may seem like a rather pricey investment, especially considering the over-inflated prices of the newer Raspberry Pi models, these expansion boards offer plenty of benefits to make them worth your money. For instance, pairing a fast SSD with the GeeekPi N04 will boost your Raspberry Pi’s performance and increase the responsiveness of the OS. Similarly, Wonrabai’s USB HAT is great if you find yourself running out of ports when building projects with your Raspberry Pi.

That said, some HATs are more situational than others, so you might want to hold off from buying them unless you have something specific in mind that you plan to build with them. If you’re into running LLMs on the Raspberry Pi, the Pineberry Pi AI HAT will boost your Raspberry Pi’s AI processing capabilities to the next level.