7 Accessories to Supercharge Your Raspberry Pi Experience

I love how super customizable the Raspberry Pi is. It’s easy to expand a Pi’s features with different add-ons. But there are so many options that figuring out where to start can be overwhelming. So in this post, I’ll give you a list of my favorite game-changing accessories.

Supercharge your Raspberry Pi by adding hardware that extends its capabilities. The best accessories will open up completely new ways to experience the Pi.

To get you started, I’ll recommend some hardware and explain what makes each special. The accessories on my list will be accompanied by links to our reviews and tutorials, along with where to get your hands on ones of your own. Let’s jump to it.

If you’re looking for inspiration for your next Raspberry Pi project, I’ve put together a list of 75+ ideas with full descriptions, difficulty ratings, and links to tutorials. Whether you’re a beginner or more advanced, there’s something here for you. Grab the list for free here!

Portable Game Dock

Remember the robot Soundwave from the Transformers cartoon who could transform into a tape cassette deck? Now your Pi can do something similar but turn into something cool (sorry, Soundwave).

The Retroflag GPi CASE 2W is a dock that turns your Raspberry Pi into a handheld gaming console. Your Pi Zero 2 becomes the cartridge, while the case provides a 3-inch IPS color screen, rechargeable batteries, and a gamepad. All you need to do next is load some ROMS.

Now you can travel back in time and play every title ever made for the Game Boy and Game Boy Color. Except this time around, you can experience all of them—with a better screen and faster loading times—all on a single cart.

Review: GPi Case 2W – Is It Worth It?
Purchase: Retroflag GPi CASE 2W with Carrying Bag

A faster Raspberry Pi drive

A performance bottleneck that often gets overlooked by PC users is the speed of their hard drive. The same can be true on the Raspberry Pi: replacing your Pi’s micro SD card with an SSD (solid-state drive) can dramatically increase your Pi’s speed.

The march of technological progress has made this upgrade affordable. Keep in mind that you’ll also need an adapter—an enclosure or a case—to connect things. And to fully reap the benefits, you’ll want to boot your Pi directly from your SSD.

Adding an SSD lets you take on projects with your Pi that you might have considered impractical or impossible. It can improve the responsiveness of your LAMP web server and media servers like Plex or Jellyfin.

Review: Argon One M.2: Who is it For?
Purchase SSD: Transcend M.2 SSD 128GB
Purchase Adapter: Sabrent M.2 Enclosure or Argon ONE M.2 Aluminum Case

Touchscreen Monitor

Sometimes I feel a little silly when I have to crawl under my desk to swap monitor cables between my desktop PC and my Raspberry Pi—especially since I don’t need a giant monitor for my Pi most of the time. Is there a more convenient solution?

The SunFounder touchscreen for the Pi might be your best bet. Its 7-inch IPS display outputs 1024 x 600 resolution, includes built-in speakers, and provides an audio jack for your headphones. The touchscreen is plug-and-play out of the box, so you can start tapping right away.

(SunFounder has also released a larger 10-inch screen I recently reviewed here.)

Adding a small display makes the Pi viable as a stand-alone mini-desktop. Resting the display against your Pi with the included bracket makes it feel like they’re seamlessly one. Now, you have a fast way to check on the status of your Minecraft server or install a pop-up kiosk at an event.

Review: SunFounder 7-Inch Touchscreen | SunFounder 10-inch Touchscreen
Purchase: SunFounder 7” IPS LCD Touchscreen | SunFounder TS-10

Powered USB Hub

Have you ever connected one too many devices to your Pi? If so, your devices might have stopped working with error messages like “under-voltage detected” or “over-current condition.” How do you make these problems go away?

This powered USB hub is here to save the day. With a dedicated plug, this hub can provide enough juice to power all your devices. It gives you four fast USB 3.0 data ports—each with its own on/off switch—and an extra charging port for your smartphone or tablet.

I also like the on/off buttons on it, making it an effective solution for multi-booting to different USB sticks if you, like me, are constantly switching from one system to another. But it also works to enable or disable USB accessories without having to disconnect them each time.

A powered USB hub opens the doors to lots of cool projects: connect multiple hard drives to build your own NAS, run a Retropie arcade cabinet with joysticks for all players, or install a MotionEye system with multiple IP cams.

Purchase: Atolla 4-Port USB 3.0 Hub

Laptop Dock

Your Raspberry Pi is so small that you’ve probably wondered how you could use it on a plane or in class. Well, I’m here to tell you that with the right equipment, your Mr. Robot hacker dreams can become reality.

The CrowPi2 is a dock that turns your Pi into a laptop. The CrowPi2 adds a high-quality 11.6-inch IPS screen with Full HD 1080p resolution, a keyboard and trackpad, a camera, microphone, and stereo speakers—all built-in and ready for mobile computing.

But is the CrowPi2 merely a substitute for a Chromebook? Nope. The keyboard detaches magnetically to reveal a hidden development board. There are 22 sensors for you to experiment with hardware and programming. It’s a laptop that moonlights as the ultimate Pi learner’s kit.

Review: My CrowPi2 Raspberry Pi Laptop Review
Purchase: CrowPi2 All-in-One Raspberry Pi Laptop (get 5% off by using the coupon code RPITIPS at checkout)

Update: The CrowPi3 is a newer version that just came out. Read my review here.

Uninterruptible Power Supply

You might already know that there’s more than one way to power your Raspberry Pi. But besides the official power supply or the more exotic PoE+ HAT, did you know that the Pi can run off batteries?

The SunFounder UPS Power Supply stacks onto your Pi like they’re all layers of a sandwich. Pass-through technology lets you power your Pi and recharge the UPS battery pack simultaneously. If power from the wall goes out, the UPS switches your Pi to run in battery mode.

With portable power, you can take advantage of new ways to use your Pi. Run your Pi in hard-to-reach places. Charge your Pi with renewable solar, wind, or thermoelectric power. Or pool these ideas together to make a portable display with DAKboard.

Review: SunFounder PiPower: Everything You Need to Know
Purchase: SunFounder Raspberry Pi UPS Power Supply with Battery

4G HAT

We’ve previously covered the best HATs for Raspberry Pi, but here’s an unusual one not found on that list. It might be just what you need for your special off-the-grid project.

The Waveshare 4G HAT connects your Pi to the same mobile networks as your smartphone, including Internet, telephony, and GPS. This HAT has low power consumption and reaches 4G LTE speeds up to 150 Mbps. Of course, you’ll need to get a SIM card with cellular service to use it.

Maybe you need to monitor a garden in a remote location or check on your wildlife camera in the jungle. With the 4G HAT, you can access the web, auto-send text messages or emails to yourself, and even track your Pi’s location using GPS coordinates.

Purchase: Waveshare 4G / 3G / GNSS HAT for Raspberry Pi

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