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I'm busy developing an nice little bed-side alarm clock with a Pi Zero W.

IT would be nice if it were an ALARM clock, not just a silent one.

I've ordered this device from Amazon in the hopes that it will work well enough, however, it seems a very clunky solution.

Is there a better way to get audio from it?

I'd like to avoid usign the GPIO pins if possible as I have a hat attached and don't really want to mess around with that. Also, I remember reading somewhere that audio via GPIO is not really that great.

UPDATE:

THAT device that I ordered from Amazon... Wow, it produced SO much noise! I would not recommend that anyone buy it. I'm looking into Bluetooth audio now.

I'm going to be ordering this guy from Amazon. What I like about it is that it has Bluetooth and the option of using a 3.5mm audio jack. (also the fact that it has an exploded view of the device in the device images).

Jim
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    What is wrong with using the analog audio output? On the Pi Zero you need to add a couple of passive components, but that is trivial compared with a sound card. – Milliways Sep 01 '20 at 09:58
  • @Milliways You don't have an analog audio output on the Pi Zero. – aklingam Sep 01 '20 at 11:57
  • @Milliways There is no headphone jack. The OP mentioned he cant use the GPIO pins because of a HAT. The solutions on adding audio to the Pi also seem very complicated (https://learn.adafruit.com/adding-basic-audio-ouput-to-raspberry-pi-zero). Also like the OP mentioned audio via GPIO has a lot of noise. – aklingam Sep 01 '20 at 12:20
  • @Milliways Could you post some more info about this please? Which pads? I know that 2 of them can be used for power? (I think I remember reading about this somewhere) Do you know of a tutorial that I can use? – Jim Sep 03 '20 at 06:40
  • @Jim My apologies I was mistaken. I remembered reading years ago about adding audio to a Pi Zero, and thought the pads were accessible, as on other models. It can still be done by routing PWM to alternate pins (using dtoverlay pwm-2chan) and soldering to the bottom of the selected pin/s. The required circuitry can be most easily seen in the bottom right of the RPI-3B-V1_2 schematic. If you do decide to go this way I could post more detailed instructions. – Milliways Sep 03 '20 at 07:39
  • Has anoyone here played around with bluetooth audio on the pi zero w? – Jim Sep 03 '20 at 22:05
  • Thanks @Milliways, I'm busy exploring a mini HDMI to 3.5mm audio converter, if that proves too clunky, i'll look into bluetooth audio. Thanks for the update though! – Jim Sep 05 '20 at 11:42
  • PiZero has a mini HDMI connector... couldn't that be used? – Seamus Sep 15 '20 at 00:22
  • Hi @Seamus, Yes it does, that's the first thig I tried (mini HDMI to D-SUB with a 3.5mm audio out jack) - see the "this device" link in the Original Post. The device was terrible though and I gave up on it. – Jim Sep 15 '20 at 09:11
  • Hmmm... Amazon is a great source for sketchy products. Maybe send it back for a refund & try something else? Other than bluetooth, I can't think of another way to get audio out. I'm just finishing up a long and painful (but finally successful) saga of getting audio over Bluetooth from a RaspiOS "Lite" system - maybe that would work for your app? ALSO know that Bluetooth audio on RPi has had a dismal history of noise problems. Some think it's fixed - some don't. – Seamus Sep 15 '20 at 22:08
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    @Seamus Already returned, BT speaker in cart, waiting for a little more disposable income before ordering. – Jim Sep 16 '20 at 20:39
  • Wow, Bluetooth on the Rpi really sucks. I'm really struggling to get it working. I might just have to go the route of using a USB audio card. – Jim Oct 11 '20 at 21:32

1 Answers1

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Just use the data port you can connect it to a USB audio device. You could also buy a similar device to the one you put above that you could connect to the Data port. If you're tight on space search for an "angled USB micro cable". You'll find something like this:
Angled usb micro cable

Another solution would be to use Bluetooth. Because it's a Pi Zero W, you'll be able to connect to a standard Bluetooth speaker.

Some other helpful links:

aklingam
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