Over the three years since its original launch, we’ve seen the small but mighty Raspberry Pi put to use in numerous projects. From phones to touchscreen desktop PCs, the little board has been at the center of all manner of creations, and with the recent release of the second generation Model B, we’re sure to see it put to use even more imaginative ways. PiJuice aims to up the versatility of the system, adding battery power to make it more portable.
PiJuice is fairly simple device. It provides a 1,400 mAh user-swappable lithium-ion battery, compatible with the Raspberry Pi’s HAT layout, and combines it with multi-colored RGB LEDs for status and power management software for the Raspberry Pi OS. It uses five of the board’s GPIO pins, leaving the rest free for other add-ons.
The accessory is designed to turn the mini PC into an independent platform, charging up when plugged in, in just the same way as a laptop or smartphone. There’s a real time clock on board, allowing it to independently keep track of the time, even when not connected to the internet, and included software allows it go into sleep mode when charge gets low.
The included battery will power a Pi for up to six hours, and the team is working to source 5,000 and 10,000 mAh batteries that it estimates will last for 16 and 28 hours respectively.
If a portable Raspberry Pi sounds like something you might be interested in, then the team's second, solar powered version of the add-on will likely pique your interest even more. The PiJuice Solar is designed to allow users to create entirely autonomous systems, from security camera setups to weather stations, using a Raspberry Pi board as a backbone. It plugs directly into a provided solar panel via micro-USB, and can reportedly receive inputs from thermoelectric plates, wind turbines and other renewable energy sources, too.
The team believes that the easy portability provided by the PiJuice add-on greatly expands the platform's usefulness, and has designed a number of portable projects that it will open source to the community.
A single early bird PiJuice is pitched at £20 (US$30) on Kickstarter , while the PiJuice Solar is £60 ($91), complete with a specially made 6 V PV panel. The project has nearly tripled its £10,000 funding target as of writing, and should everything go to plan, its creators aim to ship units to backers by the end of June.
The team's crowdfunding pitch video can be seen below.
Sources: PiJuice, Kickstarter
But that's just the thing. you can steer clear of them. Do they give you a popup add saying your computer needs a driver update and to download and install junk? Do they call your house and tell there is a problem with your auto warranty ang get you to renew with them? Do they tell you that you won something but they just need you credit card number to ship it? Do they force toolbars you don't want on you when you install a necessary security update for software like Java? Do they preinstall root certificates on your computer so they can use a man in the middle attack to serve advertisements to you? Do they run multiple instances of software on your PC so if you attempt to delete or remove an instance that the others can re-copy itself on your machine forcing all but most technical users to deal with their intrusion?
Take a look at "Here’s What Happens When You Install the Top 10 Download.com Apps": http://www.howtogeek.com/198622/heres-what-happens-when-you-install-the-top-10-download.com-apps/
There are a whole host of much less optional things that are both legal and much more shady than crowdfunding sites. They provide a fairly useful service to people in the maker community that want to launch product ideas with low overhead without having to pitch the idea to big companies or vampire VC's.
I wouldn't spend money on kickstarter I couldn't afford to lose but still I've been happy with the projects I've backed so far.
If you want to opt out, then opt out but I don't remember the last time my mom called me and said "Hey Daishi, I was just using my computer and something popped up. I clicked to make it go away and suddenly I am backing a kickstarter project and I can't do anything with my computer now but back crowdfunding websites and it won't let me remove it, help!"
I think crowdfunding provides a really useful service and and I would hate to see them get buried under a pile of legal red tape. Creating a new product already involves too many lawyers and not enough people working on the product as it is and any liability insurance crowdfunding sites would be forced to carry to refund peoples money if they became regulated would only just get baked into the price people pay to back projects anyway.