PiJuice Adds Power To Your Pirojects

If you’ve ever used a Raspberry Pi you’ll notice that it’s great until you need to unplug it. While you can add a battery (the PiPhone had one), it’s not quite as easy as all that. Now, however, you can simply plug in the PiJuice and power your Pi on the fly.

The PiJuice is a “hat” that fits on top of the Raspberry Pi and includes a 1400 mAh battery, integrated real time clock, and an onboard on/off switch. You can even sleep and wake and the Pi based on events. If you don’t know why this doesn’t sound amazing you probably have never wanted to build a portable wireless cat-food dispenser controller or a mobile Raspberry-Pi-powered rocket launching rig.

The PiJuice can be had for about $30 on Kickstarter and should ship in May. For those of you working on a robotic bird feeder/treadmill the PiJuice also comes in a solar version with a panel built right in to charge the battery.

Created by Pi-fans Aaron Shaw and Harry Gee the project essentially takes the Pi off of your desk and into the real world. It even fits inside most Raspberry Pi cases, a real treat for hobbyists who don’t want to buy another plastic enclosure. I, for one, am looking forward to building a Pi-based mobile robotic crab with solar-powered legs that can carry my pack over the desiccated dystopian landscape after the coming global apocalypse.