Setup guide

From blank SD card to a working wall display

The whole process, start to finish. Budget about 20 minutes, most of it spent waiting on downloads.

What you'll need

1

Flash Raspberry Pi OS onto the SD card

Download and open Raspberry Pi Imager — the official, free tool from Raspberry Pi themselves. Insert your SD card, then in Imager:

Choose OS → Raspberry Pi OS (64-bit). Choose Storage → your SD card.

Before clicking "Next," click the gear/settings icon (or you'll be prompted) to pre-configure things — set a hostname, enable SSH, and enter your Wi-Fi details here. Doing this now means the Pi connects to your network automatically on first boot, without needing a keyboard/mouse plugged into it at all.

Click Write, and wait for it to finish (this is the slow part).

2

Boot the Pi

Move the SD card to the Pi, connect it to your screen, and power it on. Give it a couple of minutes for its first boot — it's doing some one-time setup in the background.

If you set up Wi-Fi and SSH during flashing (step 1), you don't need a keyboard or mouse connected to the Pi at all — everything from here can be done from another computer.
3

Open a terminal and run the installer

If you're on the Pi directly, open a Terminal window. If you're connecting from another computer instead, open your own terminal and connect over SSH first (replace with the hostname you set in step 1):

ssh [email protected]

Then run the installer:

curl -sSL https://piazzahq.com/install | bash

This downloads the latest version and sets everything up automatically — Node.js, the app itself, and the wall-display kiosk mode. It'll ask for your password partway through (for a couple of one-time system installs) and reboot automatically when it's done.

4

You're up

After it reboots, the calendar display should appear automatically on the connected screen. From your phone or any browser on the same network, visit the address shown on that screen to finish setup — you'll pick whether this is your main device, and (for the main device) enter an email to activate it. No payment required during the free period; it's just how you get update notices and, eventually, pricing info.

From there: themes, calendar sources, and everyone in your family or team.

If something goes wrong

The install command fails partway through

Run it again — it's safe to re-run, and won't repeat steps that already succeeded. If it keeps failing at the same point, note the exact error and reach out.

The screen shows nothing after rebooting

Give it another minute — the kiosk display can take a moment to start after boot. If it's still blank, check the HDMI cable is in the port labeled HDMI0 on a Pi 4/5, not the second port.

I don't know the Pi's address to visit from my phone

It's shown directly on the wall display itself once it's running. If you set a custom hostname in step 1, try http://<that-hostname>.local from a phone on the same Wi-Fi network.