Prebuild Image ‐ Basic
You can follow the video tutorial to install it step by step, or simply download the pre-built image and use it by inserting it into your Raspberry Pi Zero 2W.
- Raspberry Pi zero 2W
- tf card (recommend 16GB or more)
- Whisplay HAT (screen, speaker, mic, button)
- PiSugar 3 (mobile power)
This Tiny Raspberry Pi Chatbot Actually Talks!
The Basic image is now built and published by GitHub Actions.
Download the latest packaged image directly from GitHub Releases:
You can also open the latest release page to download the image, checksum, and optional bmap file:
Basic image latest release assets
The latest release publishes the stable Basic image asset as whisplay-basic.img.xz.
Remember to extract the .xz file into an .img file before flashing it.
SSH
user: pi
password: raspberry
pisugar-power-manager
model: pisugar3
user: admin
password: admin
The GitHub-packaged Basic image is built with pi-gen using the configuration in packaging/pi-gen/basic/:
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Image name | whisplay-basic |
| Base OS | Raspberry Pi OS Debian Trixie, 64-bit |
| Target hostname | whisplay-basic |
| Default user | pi |
| Default password | raspberry |
| SSH | Enabled |
| cloud-init | Enabled |
| Compression | .img.xz |
| Default Wi-Fi country | GB |
| Bootloader |
Whisplay U-Boot, installed as u-boot-whisplay-rpi-arm64.bin
|
| Build stages | stage0 stage1 stage2 stage3 stage-whisplay |
The image writes build metadata to /etc/whisplay-image/basic-release and /etc/whisplay-image/u-boot-release:
WHISPLAY_RELEASE_VERSION=<release-or-branch-name>
WHISPLAY_CHATBOT_REF=<git-ref>
WHISPLAY_CHATBOT_REPO=<repo-url>
WHISPLAY_UBOOT_REPO=PiSugar/whisplay-u-boot
WHISPLAY_UBOOT_VERSION=latest
WHISPLAY_UBOOT_ASSET=u-boot-whisplay-rpi-arm64.bin
WHISPLAY_UBOOT_LOGO_ASSET=logo_lcd_240_280_rgb565.bmpThis image comes pre-installed with the following software:
- Whisplay U-Boot (shows the Whisplay boot logo on the SPI LCD before Linux starts)
- Whisplay HAT Driver (driver for the soundcard and screen)
- whisplay-daemon (local hardware daemon and app launcher)
- whisplay-ai-chatbot (this project, checked out from the release/tag/branch used by the image build)
- pisugar-power-manager (for displaying battery level, v2.3.2)
- sugar-wifi-conf (config Wi-Fi through BLE)
- Node.js 20, Python dependencies, unified
whisplaysoundaudio configuration, fonts, and emoji assets required by the chatbot UI
The image downloads u-boot-whisplay-rpi-arm64.bin, logo_lcd_240_280_rgb565.bmp, and their checksum files from the latest Whisplay U-Boot release, installs them to the boot partition, then sets enable_uart=1, uart_2ndstage=1, and kernel=u-boot-whisplay-rpi-arm64.bin in config.txt.
The image enables whisplay-daemon.service, whisplay-chatbot-register.service, the unified whisplaysound sound card setup, PiSugar services, and the BLE Wi-Fi configuration service. chatbot.service is installed but is not enabled directly; the chatbot is registered with and launched by whisplay-daemon.
Use the image burning tool to flash the .img file onto a TF card (you can pre-config your own Wi-Fi in Raspberry Pi Imager). Once the flashing is complete, insert the card into your Raspberry Pi Zero 2W and power it on.
To connect the Pi via Wi-Fi for further configuration, you can download the PiSugar APP on your mobile phone. The Pi will broadcast its Wi-Fi status and IP via BLE.
Use the "Wifi Config" feature to discover nearby devices, connect to your Raspberry Pi, and configure the Wi-Fi SSID and password. After a short wait, you will be able to see the Raspberry Pi's local network IP.
- If you have problems using the app, there's a web version, check out this link: https://www.pisugar.net/sugar-wifi-conf You can use the web version on android / chrome browsers.
The project folder is located at ~/whisplay-ai-chatbot. You can edit the .env file within the folder to configure the settings.
After modifying the configuration, you need to restart the service by running the following command:
sudo systemctl restart chatbot.serviceThis will apply the new settings.