SunFounder Pi Power 5 Review: Everything You Need to Know

A Raspberry Pi can run for months without any issue… until your power cuts at the wrong time. To avoid this (and the corrupt data that usually comes with it), you can use a UPS like the SunFounder Pi Power 5. I’ve got the chance to give it a try; here’s what you need to know.

An uninterruptible power supply (UPS) protects a Raspberry Pi from sudden shutdowns by providing backup power or allowing a safe shutdown. The SunFounder PiPower 5 is a UPS HAT designed for this purpose, offering battery backup and power management features.

After testing it in different situations, I’ll walk you through what works well, what could be improved, and whether it’s worth adding to your setup.

To be completely transparent, SunFounder sent me this product to review. I was given complete freedom to share my honest thoughts about it. I don’t think it influenced my review, but so you know everything.

Introducing the PiPower 5 UPS HAT

I used to work in a humble commercial office building that was apparently owned by a Hollywood comedian/actor. The power went out a few times a year, and every time, it felt like the joke was on us! There went our work that wasn’t saved, and time wasted waiting for the lights to come back on.

One day, when I was fed up with it, I went out and bought an uninterruptible power supply (UPS). Whenever there was a power outage, the UPS would beep to let me know while keeping my PC on. It let me continue being productive as if nothing had happened (except for typing in the dark).

This latest product from SunFounder, the PiPower 5, works in a similar way: it’s a UPS HAT for your Raspberry Pi.

When the main supply is providing electricity normally, the PiPower 5 passes it through to the Raspberry Pi. If the power cuts, the PiPower 5 switches to battery mode to keep your Pi running. After power is restored, it charges the battery back up for next time. Nice and smooth.

On paper, the PiPower 5 seems like a simple product. You have 3 layers in this little pyramid:

• PiPower board – It’s connected to the Raspberry Pi via the GPIO pins and has a USB-C port to receive power.
• Raspberry Pi – Sits in the middle of the stack and gets power from the PiPower module.
• Battery – Taped to an acrylic stand at the bottom.

The PiPower 5 costs around $35 at the time of writing (check the price here). I think that’s fair for everything with the battery included, along with free shipping. If you need that extra security to protect your data and give you peace of mind, it’s definitely worth it.

PiPower 5 Features

When I actually dove into the PiPower 5 for testing, I realized it’s more versatile than I initially assumed.

Let’s start with what boards the PiPower 5 is compatible with:

• Raspberry Pi 5 / 4 / 3B+.
• Raspberry Pi Zero 2W / Zero.
• Raspberry Pi Pico 2W.
• Arduino, ESP32, Banana Pi and other SBCs (full compatibility list here).

Its rechargeable battery is 7.4V with a 2000 mAh capacity. It can be recharged using both standard USB-C chargers and more powerful fast chargers (up to 45W).

But is the PiPower 5 simply a glorified battery pack? Absolutely not. The key to the whole system is a chip specially designed to manage all of its smart features.

For instance, if a power outage occurs, a whole slew of UPS features kick in. First, it emits beeps and can email you notifications. Next, it can issue a clean shutdown to your Raspberry Pi, to prevent damage and file corruption, once the battery runs low. It can even automatically turn the Pi back on once power is restored, so your Pi server can return to its duties seamlessly.

To prevent battery degradation—important for this product to actually last—the PiPower 5 has built-in protection from overheating, discharging all the way, and overcharging.

Better yet, many of the features I’ve mentioned can be modified through a web dashboard and custom Python scripts. More on that later.

For now, let’s get to unboxing and building this thing.

PiPower 5 Unboxing & Assembly

The PiPower 5 comes as a complete kit with everything included.
Here’s what’s inside the box:

• PiPower board – The controller module.
• Battery – It’s included, so you don’t have to shop for a compatible one separately.
• Acrylic plate – For the battery to rest on.
• Tools – Wrench, standoffs, screwdriver, screws, heatsink, and adhesive tape.
• Assembly Instructions.

In my experiences with SunFounder, they always make assembly easy. The step-by-step manual is printed in color and is mostly pictures, so anyone can follow it regardless of language.

I also like that all the screws are labelled to match the manual, and they’re generous with spares (for example, only 4 screws are required, but 6 are included in the bag).

PiPower 5 Hardware Assembly

Overall, the assembly is quite simple. You start by sticking the battery to the acrylic board. After that, you screw in each stack from the bottom up: battery > Raspberry Pi > PiPower.

There are a couple of things that might be helpful for you to know:

• The instructions say to lay the battery with the wires facedown; however, it made the balance wonky, so I decided to flip the battery over to lay it flat.
• Also, it doesn’t explicitly show that the power board needs to slide onto the Raspberry Pi’s GPIO pins, but I think it’s fairly obvious when you get there.

The assembly took me about 10 minutes, mostly from being overly cautious. Once I understood how everything worked, putting it together or taking it apart was just a few minutes.

When it’s all done, the whole thing looks like this:

You’ll want to charge the battery up before using it. No power supply is included, so you’ll need to provide your own.

I’m using the official power supply from my Raspberry Pi 5 for this review. You only need to plug in the PiPower 5, so don’t supply the Raspberry Pi itself.

A not-so-obvious perk is that the PiPower 5 lets you plug in regular USB-C chargers. One of the grievances with the Raspberry Pi 5 was its nonstandard 5V/5A requirement, so using non-official chargers—even a powerful 45W charger—would give voltage errors. With the PiPower, however, I could finally use my “fast chargers” for my Pi 5 setup, and they worked great.

When you plug it in, the PiPower 5 emits a fanfare, and its blinking LEDs show you its charging progress. It’s all pretty intuitive. When all 4 orange bars fill up, it’s go time.

PiPower 5 Software Installation

After finishing the hardware assembly, you’ll continue with SunFounder’s online guide. You’ll need to install the PiPower 5 software to activate all of its functionality.

With the software, you can monitor and configure everything from a web dashboard. The previous PiPower model didn’t have a visual tool like this, and it made everything so much easier for me to understand everything related to battery and power conditions.

If you’re on Raspberry Pi OS Desktop, a green bar in the corner informs you when it has switched to battery mode. It’s a nice little detail, though it wasn’t very accurate at estimating battery life.

You can also interact with the PiPower 5 manually through the command line, which is useful for making your own scripts (more flags defined here).

Performance Testing the PiPower 5

So how does the PiPower 5 actually perform when under pressure? I did a few tests and will share my results and overall thoughts with you, but you’re also welcome to ask in the community if you have specific questions about this product.

Switching Between Power Sources

One thing that works really well is switching from one power source to another. The PiPower 5 will instantly switch to battery if your main power supply goes down.

The PiPower seamlessly switches between battery and outlet power, with no reboot or errors. The voltage and thermals remained within normal ranges throughout the process. I think it’s a great product for when you don’t have reliable power.

Especially when you have services running all the time with multiple users, it’s a good safety net. I remember when I ran a Minecraft server, any unscheduled reboots caused major issues (rollbacks, corrupted maps, lost items). And many home servers can face similar issues.

After coming in clutch once or twice, the PiPower will quickly pay for itself.

Safe Power Off

A feature we wished for last time has now been added: the PiPower 5 can cleanly shut down the Raspberry Pi to prevent damage.

It triggers when the battery:

• Drops below a specific percentage you set.
• Runs out completely.

Automatic shutdown already works out of the box for the Raspberry Pi 5 and Pi 4. When I tested it, it triggered flawlessly, whether I set the threshold as high as 90% or as low as 10%.

Auto Power On

Another neat new feature is that the PiPower 5 automatically turns the Raspberry Pi back on once the power supply is restored.

I let my Raspberry Pi run on battery until it fell below 10% and did an auto-shutdown. Next, I plugged the power supply back in, and the PiPower 5 booted my Pi immediately. It was seamless, and it kept my system running while simultaneously recharging the battery.

Keep in mind that if your power supply isn’t strong enough, then this feature won’t work correctly at critical battery levels (<10%). If you’re in this situation, an easy workaround is to set the shutdown threshold to something higher, like 25%.

Running on Battery Alone

Now comes the main event: how long can the PiPower keep a Raspberry Pi running on battery power alone? The website doesn’t specifically state, probably because it will differ depending on whether you’re using the Raspberry Pi 5 or the tiny Pi Zero 2W.

Let’s see what I got under real-world conditions.

Test #1: Raspberry Pi OS Lite

For my first test, I spun up a headless server with minimal power usage:

• Board: Raspberry Pi 5 (4GB).
• System: Raspberry Pi OS Lite.
• Storage: SD card.
• Network: Ethernet.
• Wi-Fi & Bluetooth: disabled.
• Estimated power draw: 3.5 W.

The Raspberry Pi stayed up for close to 5 hours before going into a safe shutdown. To be clear, nothing was running on my Pi, so if your server is performing tasks in the background, the battery will probably drain faster.

As a comparison point, I decided to do a load test using the stress-ng package. It ran a 6W load on my Raspberry Pi the entire time, and this time, it lasted about 3 hours.

So I guess your battery life will be somewhere between 3 and 5 hours during normal usage.

Note: The Raspberry Pi 5 consumes more electricity than other models, so you may get longer battery life on the Pi 4 or Pi Zero 2W.

Test #2: Raspberry Pi OS with Desktop

For my second test, I decided to try using Raspberry Pi OS with Desktop. I had the web browser open to RaspberryTips and a mouse and keyboard plugged in via USB.

• Board: Raspberry Pi 5 (4GB).
• System: Raspberry Pi OS Desktop.
• Storage: SD card.
• Network: Wi-Fi.
• Wi-Fi & Bluetooth: enabled.
• Estimated power draw: 4.5 W.

Well, this time, I got 6 hours and 20 minutes of uptime before the battery ran out.

I was definitely not expecting this result. How could a Desktop system, with graphics and USB peripherals, last longer on battery than the minimal Lite system?

At first, I thought I had made some sort of mistake; maybe the battery wasn’t fully charged. So I redid all the tests again on both systems, but I still got the same results. The Desktop system lasted longer on battery when at idle.

As one last sanity check, I ran the same stress test on Desktop as I did for Lite. At load, the Desktop system stayed up for less than 3 hours. This was a lower duration than Lite’s, so at least this result makes sense.

After some sleuthing, my guess is that the Desktop system has power management features that are currently ahead of Lite in some way. This could either be because of the recent Trixie release of Raspberry Pi OS or due to the PiPower5 itself. I imagine a firmware or software update in the future will bring them closer to par.

Autonomy Tests Summary

In short, the PiPower 5 can keep a Raspberry Pi on for as long as 6 hours on the Desktop edition of Raspberry Pi OS, but less than four hours when more greedy apps are used.

Autonomy test	Raspberry Pi OS Lite	Raspberry Pi OS Desktop
Battery life @ idle	4h 49m	6h 20m
Battery life @ load	3h 02m	2h 56m

If you planned to use a Raspberry Pi completely wireless (for outdoor projects, for example), this will probably be a bit limited.

You can likely leave a minimal operating system running for a few hours if it doesn’t run too many tasks (maybe for a camera project taking wildlife pictures?). But even with solar panels plugged in, it won’t last the whole night, so you might need a bigger battery for that.

My Review of the PiPower 5 UPS HAT

After taking the PiPower 5 for a test drive, I can confidently say that it’s a big step forward from the previous model. I think this UPS HAT would be great if you need a battery backup for your Raspberry Pi, whether you’re running it as a Pi NAS, smart home controller, or some other use.

Main Power Capabilities

Let me start by reviewing the core UPS features. Everything is more user-friendly this time around, and I especially loved the new auto-shutdown and auto-power-on features.

The web dashboard is another major improvement. It was easy for me to visualize all of the essential power stats, like battery life and power draw, but it can also monitor other things like CPU/GPU and network activity. It makes for a nice little server monitoring tool when you don’t need something more complex like Webmin or Cockpit.

Third, the software includes a decent notification system. I could make lots of granular adjustments for what beeps to emit and emails to send during power events. It doesn’t support mobile texts, unfortunately, but you could always roll your own SMS notification system.

Form Factor

I think the PiPower 5 has a lot going for it in terms of form factor. The board reroutes the power port to the back next to all the other ports. This makes it easier to design your own enclosure, especially if you’re going to be 3D printing one.

The whole setup is smaller than I expected. It’s super compact, just the way Pi things should be. To give you an idea, here’s the PiPower 5 next to a Flirc case:

There’s one thing to consider with this layout, and that’s cooling. For less powerful Pi boards, it’s not needed. Running the Pi 5 or Pi 4 on battery for extended periods, however, is another story.

I’m not sure that the official Raspberry Pi Active Cooler will fit (I didn’t have one available to test). You could mount the PiPower onto a case that exposes the GPIO (like the Pironman 5), but it looks rather awkward. If it were me, I’d probably build an enclosure with a fan.

Custom Applications

I felt the documentation could have been clearer on big picture ideas, like passthrough and auto-power on. In regard to the technical aspects, however, it’s quite detailed and covers a broad range of custom applications.

You can see from this diagram that the board connectors support varied configurations.
Here are the major ones:

• Screw terminals – for adding a custom power/battery source.
• I2C header – to output power or communicate with I2C devices.
• USB-A port – to output power to USB-A devices.
• 2x4P header – to output power to other modules like Pi Pico or ESP32.
• Jumpers – to modify power behavior for different setups.

Another thing I want to mention is that you can stack other HATs on top of the PiPower 5, and it keeps them running. The documentation on how to use these GPIO pins is thin, except for mentioning that there are a few reserved for the PiPower itself.

Lastly, customization is extended via the PiPower software, which lets you code your own behavior using Python/Micropython. There are many possibilities here, and I’m curious how many buyers will actually use these advanced features.

Alternatives?

To give you one last bit of context, I decided to do similar tests using my power bank instead (similar to this one). It’s an older one (I bought it a while ago and have used it quite often), but it’s got a 25,000 mAh battery (3.7V) vs. 2,000 mAh (7.4V) for the one included with the PiPower 5.

The same test with Raspberry Pi OS Desktop kept a Raspberry Pi 4 on for 5 hours and 16 minutes (7h29 on the Lite edition). So, it seems more suited for projects where you need to keep the Pi running on battery for a very long time.

The PiPower 5 has many advantages over a typical power bank: it’s built for Raspberry Pi, in a compact format, that includes failsafes, monitoring, and notifications.

A power bank is also generally more expensive (check the price here). Maybe using both for outdoor projects is a good idea. You add the two batteries together and keep the advantages of the PiPower.

Overall, the PiPower 5 is an excellent UPS power supply to keep your Raspberry Pi up during brief power disruptions, but it’s not meant to keep a Pi running on battery for days.

Overall, I’m impressed with the PiPower 5 and all of the solutions SunFounder has come up with here. If you’re working on an important project with your Raspberry Pi, it’ll already pay for itself in lost productivity after one or two outages.

And if you try it, please let me know how your experience was! I have added this product to my list of favorite Raspberry Pi accessories. Click on the link to see the others ;-).

Whenever you’re ready, here are other ways I can help you:

Test Your Raspberry Pi Level (Free): Not sure why everything takes so long on your Raspberry Pi? Take this free 3-minute assessment and see what’s causing the problems.

The RaspberryTips Community: Need help or want to discuss your Raspberry Pi projects with others who actually get it? Join the RaspberryTips Community and get access to private forums, exclusive lessons, and direct help.

Master your Raspberry Pi in 30 days: If you are looking for the best tips to become an expert on Raspberry Pi, this book is for you. Learn useful Linux skills and practice multiple projects with step-by-step guides.

Master Python on Raspberry Pi: Create, understand, and improve any Python script for your Raspberry Pi. Learn the essentials step-by-step without losing time understanding useless concepts.

You can also find all my recommendations for tools and hardware on this page.