raspOVOS works with almost any audio hardware the Pi can see, and auto-configures the common cases at boot.
A cheap USB conference microphone/speakerphone (or separate USB mic + 3.5 mm/HDMI speaker) is the most reliable option. Plug it in; the image’s soundcard autoconfiguration prefers USB audio when present and re-runs on hot-plug.
At boot, ovos-i2csound probes the I²C bus and configures detected boards
automatically, including ReSpeaker 2-mic/4-mic/6-mic arrays, WM8960-based
boards, SJ-201 (Mark II) and AIY VoiceKit. If your HAT is detected you
will find its name in /etc/OpenVoiceOS/i2c_platform.
cat /etc/OpenVoiceOS/i2c_platform # which board was detected
ovos-audio-diagnostics # what the sound stack sees
The autoconfiguration picks the default output in this order: USB → non-onboard cards (HATs/DACs) → headphone jack → HDMI. You can always override it — see Troubleshoot audio.