Adafruit's Cyberdeck Bonnet Brings Add-On Hardware to Your Raspberry Pi 400 — at a Jaunty Angle

Adafruit has launched an add-on that holds its Bonnet hardware at the rear of the all-in-one Raspberry Pi 400 single-board computer at a jaunty angle: the Cyberdeck Bonnet for Raspberry Pi 400.

Designed as the first "consumer product" from Raspberry Pi, the Raspberry Pi 400 takes the core hardware from the popular Raspberry Pi 4 family of single-board computers and packs it - with a hefty heatsink and a healthy overclock - into a keyboard as an all-in-one device inspired by the eight-bit systems of Atari, Acorn, Commodore, Sinclair, and more.

The move to a new form factor brought with it a key compatibility issue, however: While the 40-pin general-purpose input/output (GPIO) header common to the Raspberry Pi range since the Raspberry Pi Model B+ extended the original board's 24-pin design is present and correct, it's located at the rear and flipped - meaning any add-ons you fit are both upside down and facing away from you as you use the keyboard.

The Adafruit Cyberdeck Bonnet looks to fix that, at least for the more compact Bonnet-style add-ons the company has produced. "It’s a major upgrade to our extender board," the company writes: "Now you can jack in any Pi Bonnet into the back of your Pi 400’s skull at a cool angle, perfect for augmenting your deck! We also give you two STEMMA (JST 3-PH) connectors on GPIO #18 and #13, and twin STEMMA QT I2C port plugs, for additional upgrades."

As well as Adafruit's own Bonnet range, the add-on - which uses an angled GPIO connector so the board doesn't sit at a 90 degree angle and cause eye-strain — should be compatible with any other Raspberry Pi GPIO-connected hardware, though only the more compact mini-HAT and pHAT designs will have enough clearance above the keyboard.

The Adafruit Cyberdeck Bonnet is available on the company store priced at $6.95 — though use of the STEMMA ports will require additional cables, if you haven't any in your parts drawer already.