The Raspberry Pi’s small size and broad range of applications means it can be ideal for use in situations where power can be unreliable or not accessible. While most microcontrollers are capable of recovering in the event of a sudden power loss the Raspberry Pi is more like a desktop computer and so can suffer from data corruption if not properly shut down. It can also sometimes not be practical to power the Raspberry Pi from a standard power source and so batteries must be used instead.

The Raspberry Pi UPS Hat by Buyapi.ca is ideal for these circumstances.

In the event of a power failure the UPS Hat can notify the Raspberry Pi that power has been lost and using shell scripting the Pi can be instructed to shut down gracefully. The UPS HAT can also be used to provide a continuous 5 volt 3 amps to the Raspberry Pi from a battery source.

The battery included with the UPS hat is capable of powering the Raspberry Pi for about 30 minutes, more than enough to ensure the Pi shuts down gracefully and no data is lost.