Sidecar

Sidecar 0.2.0

Sidecar 0.2.0: one SD card for the Raspberry Pi 4B and the Raspberry Pi 5, the Pi 5's HDMI display, DSI auto-detect, a faster web page over Wi-Fi and a power warning. It needs the same Rytm build as 0.1.0: rui1027d (or sfx1021 without the remote pages). A MINOR step (semantic versioning): new boards and features, nothing removed.

Sidecar Mini (Teensy 4.1) stays at 0.1.0. 0.2.0 has no Teensy build: Sidecar Mini users keep (or download) sidecar-teensy41-454d38b2.hex and sidecar-mini-plugins-0.1.0.zip from the 0.1.0 release. The Mini works with the same Rytm build.

New in 0.2.0

• One card for the Pi 4B and the Pi 5 (in testing): config.txt has a [pi4] and a [pi5] section and each board reads only its own boot files (Pi 4: sdboot.img and engine.img as in 0.1.0; Pi 5: kernel_2712.img). The Pi 4 boots with exactly the 0.1.0 settings. The Pi 5 build itself is tested on hardware; the shared card is being tested on both boards now.
• Raspberry Pi 5 (tested on hardware) (2026-10-19): the Rytm over USB (replug included), the voices and send effects, the remote pages, sidecar.local over Ethernet and Wi-Fi. The Pi 5 is a standalone Sidecar for now: its USB-C port is power only (no USB audio or MIDI to the computer).
• Pi 5 HDMI display (tested on hardware): the 800x480 UI scaled to the Pi 5 firmware's 1920x1080 picture, with USB touch. hdmi_force_hotplug=1 (on the card) is needed; connect the display to micro-HDMI 0 before power-on. The picture is slightly soft (scaled).
• DSI displays found by themselves (in testing): the official 7" display v1 and compatibles, on the Pi 4 through the firmware (as in 0.1.0) and on the Pi 5 driven by the engine (CAM/DISP 0 or 1, no config.txt line). With no DSI panel answering, the Sidecar uses HDMI. Not yet run on hardware.
• The web page over Wi-Fi (in testing): the page is sent compressed (121 KB to 39 KB), a stalled connection is dropped after 3 s (was 5 s), the page sends at most 2 requests at once and retries a "503 busy". /status and the log count the connections.
• Power warning (in testing): the Pi reads its supply's state (under-voltage, throttling; on the Pi 5 also the USB-PD current) at boot, on a change and once a minute: in the log, on the web page's Power tile with a warning, and in red on the display's bottom line. The warning names the board's official supply: on a Pi 4 "use the official 15 W (5.1 V 3 A) supply" (display POWER TOO WEAK: use 15 W supply), on a Pi 5 "use the 27 W (5 V 5 A) adapter directly" (POWER TOO WEAK: use 27 W adapter).
• Wi-Fi firmware for both boards on the card (/firmware/, the same Raspberry Pi files under each board's names, with the Cypress licence). Still no Wi-Fi settings on the card: Wi-Fi is off until you set it up.

Hardware: Pi 4B or Pi 5

Known issues in 0.2.0

• Pi 5: no USB audio or MIDI to the computer. Its USB-C gadget is left out of this build: even Raspberry Pi OS's own USB gadget did not connect on our Pi 5 powered from a computer. Use a Pi 4B for computer audio.
• Pi 5: use the official 27 W supply directly. Fed from a hub port the Pi 5 ran in reduced-power mode, and Wi-Fi and the web page became slow (pages of 5 s, "503 busy"). The power warning says so when it sees it.
• Pi 5 HDMI: the firmware always sets 1920x1080, so the 800x480 UI is scaled (slightly soft). The framebuffer_width, framebuffer_height and hdmi_* mode lines under [pi5] do nothing on the Pi 5 and are harmless; only hdmi_force_hotplug=1 matters.
• Pi 5 DSI has not been run on hardware yet; Touch Display 2 is not supported on either board.
• Pi 5 updates are by card swap only (no network update on the Pi 5 yet). If a Pi 5 shows its boot diagnostics screen, update its bootloader with Raspberry Pi Imager.

Everything from the 0.1.0 known issues still applies: see KNOWN-ISSUES.md.

Install: INSTALL-PI.md or https://trigcondition.github.io/sidecar-expander/getting-started/install-pi/. Check the downloads with shasum -a 256 -c SHA256SUMS.