Not sure how I didn’t cover this before… Must have got caught up in Big Birthday Weekend stuff.
Aaron Shaw from Pi Supply and his team have developed a new battery pack for the Pi called the PiJuice and are currently running a Kickstarter campaign to fund it. There’s just a few days to back the project to get hold of the HAT and battery for £24. An absolute bargain considering it will make your Pi nice and portable! It has a power switch and uses the I2C protocol to communicate.
I believe that pijuice is a fraud. It is at least a mystery. Their wildly successful Kickstarter campaign closed March 2015 but nothing has been seen from this project except vague monthly updates. In about February they have declared everything ready for production except getting quotes and selecting a manufacturing vendor. They declared “design complete prototypes ordered” in July. My guess based on absolutely no information at is that their intentions were good but they since spent the money on other things and they no longer have the cash to pay for a manufacturing run.
I don’t think it’s a fraud. I think it’s just been appallingly managed. I’m sure they have every intention of delivering, but good intentions will only get you so far. My feeling is that their efforts have been (and possibly still are) split between the multiple campaigns they’ve been running at the same time.
I hope it’s not fraud or appalling management. From a consumer’s POV the result is the same: No product. Why would anyone consider buying what is obviously a great product, when they are unable to deliver. I don’t know why they have failed, I only know they HAVE failed. It’s only a battery!
I know why they failed: 1/ Too many Kickstarters at once and inadequate time management. 2/ Too many stretch goals resulting in scope creep. Both problems were avoidable ones.