PiJuice Zero is the ultimate portable project platform for your Raspberry Pi Zero!
When plugged into any source, the PiJuice Zero acts as an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) using intelligent power management to keep your Raspberry Pi Zero going. PiJuice Zero will also stay charged, so you can take your projects with you anywhere. With an onboard Real-Time Clock (RTC), programmable LEDs and switches, user-friendly software and much more, PiJuice Zero gives you maximum control and flexibility for all your Raspberry Pi Zero projects…wherever you want to take them.
We launched the PiJuice HAT on Kickstarter in 2015 and it was a roaring success. Since launching and shipping that campaign, the most common question we get is "when are you doing a PiJuice for the Raspberry Pi Zero?" - so here it is.
From cute little robots, to wildlife monitoring, uninterruptible battery backups and a whole host of other applications PiJuice has enabled a new generation of portable Raspberry Pi projects. But have you ever wondered what other projects you could create if you had a smaller solution, compatible with the Pi Zero and in a tiny form factor? That is exactly why we created PiJuice Zero…to open the door to new possibilities.
The low profile header on the PiJuice Zero allows you to reduce the footprint of your portable-powered Raspberry Pi to a fraction of what was possible before. And with any single-cell LiPo/LiIon battery supported, as well as solar panels, you can easily take your Pi off grid and power it 24/7.
The PiJuice Zero is a complete wireless off-grid power solution for your Raspberry Pi Zero. Packed with powerful features PiJuice Zero can help you shrink your portable Raspberry Pi projects like never before. As you can see from the crowded circuit board (105 components on there!), our engineers have worked tirelessly to ensure that PiJuice Zero retains all of the key features that you know and love from the PiJuice HAT, but in a format approximately half the size.
Key Features
Of course the PiJuice family also includes a variety of solar panels, cases and other accessories to make your portable projects a success!
The image above highlights the main ICs used on PiJuice. Links to the various datasheets have been provided in line with the description.
If you would like to find more information about the PiJuice Zero pinout, hardware and other information relating to technical specification you can find that info on our PiJuice GitHub Hardware README.
The PiJuices battery backup and charging functionality works plug-and-play, right out of the box, with no software required.
However, when we were conceiving the idea behind PiJuice and prototyping and designing the boards, it quickly became clear to us that one of the most important features behind the PiJuice would be the software interface and how it allows you to manipulate and read the hardware. It seemed essential to us that it could behave in a similarly intuitive way to what you know and expect with other devices like phones, tablets and laptops…but in true maker fashion it should also offer you far more control over the hardware, firmware on software so you could customise your projects to as great an extent as possible right down to the low level stuff.
We therefore have designed a feature-packged graphical user interface (GUI) which has low level integration with the Raspberry Pi operating system. As you can see from the above screenshot it provides a system tray icon, with battery percentage and power source / charging information so you can really be in control of your power.
The above picture shows an example of one of the tabs of the GUI and some of the information available to you. For those of you that have embedded applications or want to save space on your SD card (or just you Linux lovers that prever vim to GUIs), the same information and control of PiJuice is available without the GUI as well. We have two Debian packages - pijuice-base (the core stuff) and pijuice-gui (the graphical stuff) so you can just pick the bits you want! You can install these using apt-get in the same way you would with any software on the Raspbery Pi.
You can find more out about the software, all of the features and menus, and even dig into and contribute to the code at our PiJuice GitHub page. We are constantly improving the software and firmware and adding new functionality to make the PiJuice platform even better than it already is.
| Manufacturer | Pi Supply | Pi Supply | Nelectra s.r.o. | ModMyPi | JuiceBox Zero | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Product | PiJuice Zero | PiJuice HAT | Juice4Halt - 5V | UPS Pico | JuiceBox Zero | |
| Battery Capacity | Choose your own | 1820 mAh / Choose your own | Supercapacitors | 300 mAh / Choose your own | Choose your own | |
| Battery Chemisty | Lithium-Ion / Lithium-Polymer | Lithium-Ion / Lithium-Polymer | N/A | Lithium Ion | Lithium-Ion / Lithium-Polymer | |
| Compatible with | Raspberry Pi A+,B+, 2B, 3B, 3B+, 4B, Pi Zero, Pi Zero W | Raspberry Pi A+,B+, 2B, 3B, 3B+, 4B, Pi Zero, Pi Zero W | Raspberry Pi A+, B+, 2B and 3B | Raspberry Pi A+, B+, 2B and 3B | Pi Zero / Pi Zero W | |
| RTC (Real Time Clock) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Buttons | 1 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 4 | |
| LEDs | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | |
| Fully Featured Software? | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | |
| Open Source | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | |
| CE/FCC Certified | Yes | Yes | N/A | N/A | N/A | |
| Can you stack other HATs? | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | |
| Can it fit in most existing cases? | Yes | Some / Custom Cases Available | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Solar capabilities | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | |
| Wind capabilities | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | |
| Other renewable energy capabilities | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | |
| Wide range of technical support and documentation | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | |
| Price | $39.00 ($45 inc shipping) | $52.00 ($58 inc shipping) | $44.00 | $44.00 | $44.00 |
PiJuice and PiJuice Zero
Software, code examples, hardware overviews, schematics and a vast array of other information is available at our PiJuice GitHub
We also have a PiJuice Zero quick start guide available on our Maker Zone as well as a number of projects on our Instructables and Hackster.io pages.
Here are some really cool PiJuice projects that we have found over the years:
Produced by Pi Supply in London, UK.
Sold and shipped by Crowd Supply.
Get a PiJuice Zero board by itself. For you true Pi enthusiasts who already have all of the other gear! Board comes fully assembled and ready to use. Case and battery not included.
This bundle includes one PiJuice Zero, one 500 mAh battery, and one 6 Watt solar panel.
This bundle includes one PiJuice Zero, one 12000 mAh battery, and one 40 Watt solar panel.
Get a PiJuice HAT board by itself. For you true Pi enthusiasts who already have all of the other gear! Board comes fully assembled and ready to use. Case and battery not included.
One of the coolest features of PiJuice is the ability to use it 24/7 with the aid of a large battery and a solar panel. We have panels ranging from 6 watts for the occasional user right up to 40 watts for 24/7 operation. And they will also charge your smartphones and other USB devices too.
The PiJuice HAT and Pi Zero case is designed to hold both a PiJuice HAT and Pi Zero board. The case features a sliding lid allowing for easy access to the PiJuice and battery. There are small openings on the side to allow access to the three buttons and two RGB LEDs.
Pi Supply started in 2013 with a project to bring a Raspberry Pi Power switch to life. We successfully funded this project on Kickstarter, however that was only the beginning. We subsequently opened a web store at www.pi-supply.com and have begun to fill it with cool things. However some of the cool things we want to fill it with just do not exist yet - which is why we are bringing them to you here! We have lots of ideas for Raspberry Pi add on boards and acessories and we want to bring those to you over the coming months using Kickstarter as a sounding board for these ideas...thanks for your help in support in bringing these ideas to reality. The Pi Supply Switch was our first project, and it is an intelligent power switch for the Raspberry Pi computer, with hard power off/on buttons as well as an auto power supply shutdown function.
