MicroUPS is a new device for microcomputers like Raspberry, CubieBoard or BeagleBone that functions not only as a UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply) but as an ATX Style Power Switch.

First and foremost, MicroUPS provides safety for your operating system and your valuable data. What’s more, it enables you to safely turn your operating system on and off without logging in, or plugging a wire - just by pressing a button.

MicroUPS also has 4 LEDs which can be used to indicate the status of the operating system or the status of the applications running on that system. The LEDs can be turned on and off with binary command provided by the MicroUPS software. Alternatively, they can be controlled from the user application by writing directly to the MicroUPS daemon via local socket which the daemon is listening on

Using MicroUPS you can work with your microcomputer with greater freedom, similar to a laptop. You can start it on battery power, plug it in to an electrical socket, unplug it during work, or leave it plugged in to recharge the batteries.
MicroUPS will charge Li-Ion cells regardless of whether computer is on or not.

Software

MicroUPS comes with a software package that consists of: the MicroUPS daemon, configuration files and binaries to manage the daemon. This binary is a command that a user can interact with when controlling daemon or user LEDs.
MicroUPS software uses a serial data connection to communicate with microcomputer. On Raspberry you need to comment out the last line in /etc/inittab file, to use /dev/ttyAMA0 serial port, which is otherwise used by Raspbian as a serial console.
The daemon configuration file has a few options that control the serial port, battery low level, notifications and logging. The most important option is 'poweroff_timeout' by which you can set how many seconds MicroUPS should provide power to your microcomputer before cutting it off during a power off procedure. In our tests it was set for 15 seconds which was more than enough. 

MicroUPS software will be available as an OpenSource package on GitHub, and our website. For Wheezy and any other platforms we will provide binary packages.