The power outage is a huge problem for the Raspberry Pi based projects on the field. There are infinite possibilities to cause your device unpowered for a while. A short power outage, unplanned maintenance of the transformer of your district, or an irresponsible friend can unplug the power adapter of the device to charge a smartphone. A battery backup can solve the problem but if it switches causing an instant reset on the Raspberry Pi, you may lose some data which has not been sent to the cloud yet or it still processes the data.

We designed The Power Management and UPS HAT as the ultimate solution. A real Uninterruptible power supply system to protect your data and your device when the unexpected power failure happens. You can insert a battery to the HAT and it will deal with the outages. The HAT switches between battery and adapter intelligently without letting your Pi and electronics hang up or reset. Monitoring the system power, buck-boost charge control, dynamic load sharing, and power path management ensures the power is healthy all the time. Integrated Real-Time Clock(RTC) featured microcontroller lets you schedule and full control over the power on/off tasks remotely, timely, securely. The wide range of input sources -includes solar- will provide the flexibility to choose the best option to fit your project needs.

Hardware Features

• True Uninterruptible Power Supply(UPS) battery rechargeable solution without Failing the Raspberry Pi.
• Compatible with Raspberry Pi A+, B+, 2B, 3B, 3B+, and 4 as well as Raspberry Pi Zero v1.3 and Raspberry Pi Zero Wireless.
• 3.9V to 21V input operating voltage range and open circuit voltage (Voc) up to 24V supports solar panels.
• 18650 Li-on Separable Battery Holder.
• 1-cell 3.7V External Battery Input.
• Compatible with Raspberry Pi Universal Power Supplies.
• Onboard Microcontroller manages scheduled power tasks, calendar events with Real-time Clock (RTC), gently shutdown or wake-up, sleep mode controls.
• Parallel Charging up to 3 Amps while powering the system.
• Watchdog Timer keeps the system alive when the Raspberry Pi freezes up.
• Input, System, and Battery current monitor.
• Control over current limits of batteries and sources with 50mA resolution.
• Battery protection circuit enhanced with integrated temperature sensors.
• Thermal Shutdown and Input, System, Battery Overvoltage Protection.
• Dynamic power management boosts the system output from the battery if the needed power is more than the input supply provides.
• Onboard ARM® Cortex®-M0+ MCU manages scheduled power tasks with Real-time Clock (RTC), gently shutdown, or wake-up.
• Only I2C pins of Raspberry Pi used by HAT.
• Onboard STEMMA QT/Qwiic/JST SH connector.
• Smart Cooling FAN with Pulse Signal Feedback.
• Battery level indicator LEDs with charging/discharging status.
• Slot for Raspberry Pi Camera Cable.
• Optional Pogo Spring Pins for hardware shutdown or wake up.

Power Software

One of the biggest problems of remote projects is keeping the devices all-time-powered on the edge and knowledge of the power status. While stacking the UPS HAT with a battery solves the problem as standalone. The user can manage the UPS HAT via the Sixfab Power Management Platform remotely. The detailed diagnostics about the battery and main power source available here and ease the maintenance. An ultra-lightweight service agent works on the Raspberry Pi and communicates with the platform if you have an Internet connection via ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Cellular.

Power Software Features

Diagnostics

• Charging status, Battery Percentage, and Health
• Main Power Source Plugged or Unplugged
• Input/Output Voltage Level and Current Consumption
• Temperatures of Raspberry Pi, HAT, and Battery Holder Board
• Cooling Fan Working Status and RPM
• Custom Time Graphs on the Dashboard

Configurables

• Firmware of the microcontroller on the HAT and the service agent on the Raspberry Pi can be updated remotely
• Scheduling wake-up/shutdown time or routines
• Creating e-mail alarms when a parameter exceeds certain thresholds
• Battery capacity can be updated for a precise percentage calculation (2500mAh by default)
• Safe autonomous soft shutdown and maximum charging percentage limits of the battery can be changed (20%-80% by default)
• Temperature limit that starts the cooling fan can be updated (40°C / 104°F by default)
• LED color and animation of L1 RGB can be updated (Red-heartbeat by default)
• The timezone of UPS HAT can be selected for calendar events
• Watchdog timer if the Raspberry Pi freeze and does not respond, a hard reset can be initiated