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I'm going to pull the trigger on a home miner this winter. I want a simple setup to start with. I'm happy to get waste heat from the device, but I don't want a lot of noise.
The two options I'm looking at are Heatbit and Bitaxe. Heatbit is much more expensive, but it also functions as an air purifier, which we can also use in the winter.
I'd love to hear what stackers know about these two products, or if there's something else I should be looking at.
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I'm currently thinking about buying Avalon Nano 3.
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What do you like about that one?
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Seems to me good price / performance and generates some heat too, 4 TH/s. And cheaper than Bitaxe.
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User friendly (i.e. can it be set up by a complete noob)?
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Don't know, don't have any prior experience with Avalon miners.
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This does look like a really attractive option. The setup looks fairly easy.
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Where are you both considering purchasing from?
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I'm totally open to suggestions on that, but I'm looking at them here.
I've never seen these devices before. I've listened that they make a lot of noise and another part that I'm confused is that they make air polluted? If they make why will people use them in houses.
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I don't see why they'd produce any more pollution than a personal computer. I'm looking at the quieter devices, which supposedly are quiet enough to just blend into the background.
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I tried doing the ROI on the HeatBit but couldn’t make it work until about 5 years, so I just bought Bitcoin instead last year at this time. Now I can buy an heatbit for free based on the increase in value. But I HODL and don’t sell my sats yet. lol
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Do you otherwise use any heating or air purification in your house? The value proposition isn't just mining bitcoin. It's mining bitcoin, while doing something you were going to be doing anyway.
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Yes I already have a space heater that works fine
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I wouldn’t get a heatbit unless you are using it as a space heater. It’s an expensive way to mine but if you are heating a small room with it that you would have paid to heat otherwise it might make sense. I thought about getting one and using it as a heater for a room but even with the sats it generates it didn’t make sense to spend that much.
Really cool product though.
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yea, same. I made a spreadsheet comparing all of these products. None of them make financial sense (unless you're at close-to-free electricity)... but if you're already using the electricity for heating or running a purifier etc, then it's a no-brainer
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That's what I had heard before. It would definitely be used as a heater, probably for my office, and as a purifier.
From the performance comparisons that I've found, it doesn't look particularly uneconomical, compared to other miners. Of course, I could be completely misunderstanding what I'm looking at.
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76 sats \ 1 reply \ @jgbtc 29 Oct
My bitaxe stopped working after only a week or so after I got it. I probably just got a defective one, but it may be worth spending a little more for higher quality.
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Thanks, that would be a huge bummer.
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I don’t think you’ll see much waste heat from a BitAxe, unless there’s newer beefier models I am unaware of, which is possible.
Check out some of my posts on the futurebit miners, they definitely produce some warmth but can be pretty quiet, too.
I like the BMM as well, though I’m still relatively new to it
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From your post, I think I want to start simpler than a Futurebit. It's a really nice write up, though.
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Yea, while it’s a good experience, it’s not really super simple
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I aspire to get there, eventually.
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Starting is the hardest part!
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No kidding! I think this is the third straight year that I've meant to get started.
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I say bitaxe. For no real reason.
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youre gut is sensing the right choice 🤙
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The noise is going to be an issue, anything with a fan, win time, will make noise. If this is going to be your first miner, go with the bitaxe with those "less noise fan".
It is the option with more freedom, in the way you could try solo mining, pool mining, etc wherever you want, the setup is super easy, plug and play, configure the pool and there you are.
You will learn a lot with it and then, the next step is to search for better choices (more hash power).
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Some of these products are claiming to be very quiet (< 40 Db). Do you think an Avalon Nano would be much louder than a Bitaxe?
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I don't own an Avalon Nano... but I am pretty sure that the "very quiet <40 Db" is when it's "new", 6 month into the future and let's try the noise again hahaha.
I am rotting for a bitaxe with a big chunk of metal to dissipate the heat, no moving parts, no noise, just heat.
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6 month into the future and let's try the noise again hahaha
I hadn't considered that. I'm still leaning nano, but the bitaxers are definitely pulling me their way.
If I went Bitaxe, should I jump into the deepend with the more powerful ones or start small?
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I think that bitaxe will be less powerful than nano even in the best version of it, but I value others thinks when buy a product, who build it, how is build, etc, and just only for that I went for a bitaxe, all open source, open hardware (not all, but it's something).
Maybe if it's your first time, the old bitaxe could be a good option, battle tested, no new software, simple logic (one chip), use for a little, configure pools, check noise, check configurations, change voltage values (if you want), test... and then move into the next new thing.
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the air purification feature of heatbit sounds awesome! with all the sky fumigation, that's quite appealing. i wonder what other features will get added to the machines in order to incentivize home mining.
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I was psyched about the air purification option until I saw that each device needs a $30 filter replacement every three months. For someone who definitely needs this anyway, that aspect looks pretty tasty though.
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I was about to get an air purifier anyway, so this is a sunk cost/done deal kind of thing
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Nice!
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51 sats \ 1 reply \ @jddska 29 Oct
those are great times to be living in. It was inimaginable like 5 years ago all this stuff, LN, home mining. So much power to the plebs.
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It is exciting. I remember when you could mine with any random computer, though.
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Braiins mini miner looks promising
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definitely getting one -- but they are tiny and won't do much (neither heat, nor hash)
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Ok, I'll take a look at that too.
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@BTCsessions has good content on YouTube
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It looks like they're sold out until well into winter. I might still get one, but I'll start with one of these others.
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oh man
that's a good sign!
if it was crap then they wouldn't be sold out
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41 sats \ 5 replies \ @fm 29 Oct
can you maybe go for both?
The heater is amazing.. Does the work and let you stack.. But makes no sense after the winter months probably.. Depending where you live..
Bitaxe will go year round
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I can do both eventually, but I want to start with one. That probably means starting with one of the heaters (I'm leaning towards Avalon Nano, now) and getting a Bitaxe after winter.
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58 sats \ 3 replies \ @fm 29 Oct
avalon nano is interesting but i wonder if it really heats up more than a small room.. im about to pick a bitaxe as well.. with the noctua fan
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I won't be relying on it for heat, but the heat can help even out the temperature in our house. We have a couple of rooms that tend to get cold in the winter.
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66 sats \ 1 reply \ @fm 29 Oct
make sure wifi gets to those rooms..
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One of them is my office, so no worries there.
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56 sats \ 3 replies \ @OT 28 Oct
I don't think a bitaxe will do much to heat your house. Not sure about the heat bit either.
There's the Canaan Avalon miner which does 4TH and is around $120.
I got started on a nerdaxe. I like it, but now I need more hash. Anything to start with is good.
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ur message is proof that hash is an addictive substance, regardless of what fiat docs say. 🍃
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @OT 29 Oct
Well... You need to stay relevant. The next gen bitaxes need to start doing 5-10TH
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I don't really need the heat. We have natural gas heating, so the electric heat from a miner would be more expensive anyway. Heat just isn't an issue, but noise is.
kristaps was talking about an Avalon. I'll take a look at those.
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Whats the average sats mined/day/week for each of these in the current epoch?
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About a thousand sats per day for Heatbit. I didn't see estimates for the others.
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Same -- but I'm looking at 21 energy's products too. Saw them at a BTC event and they were stunning (super quiet, profesh looking etc)
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That looks pretty nice. I'm leaning towards the Avalon Nano, after reading everyone's thoughts.
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25 sats \ 1 reply \ @Bee_Aye 29 Oct
if heatbit is still closed source and only allowing you to mine to nicehash, its a non-starter. at a minimum, you have to be able to pick where your miner hashes to, or youre doing jackshit to help. buy the BitAxe
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Thanks, that's something I didn't see while looking into it.
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Love the block-time alarm clock! I'm guessing it would go off every 144 blocks.
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An S9 is 125$ with 13TH
With brains you can drop the wattage to 900aking it a nice space heater.
I'm waiting on the Bitaxe gamma, don't have to worry about heat while altruistically joining the open source mining movement. Leaving the thing on and forgetting about it. Will post it on Nostr for zaps.
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Where do you find these listed? I actually am thinking of doing the same thing, but I was thinking of installing an old school boiler. Would be smarter to use a miner!
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Wow...they are a bit spendy. I mean the heatbit. It is in a nice package and everything...but 800$?!?! I might as well just buy an antminer at that price. The bitaxe is a bit better at $200? @k00b, you ever get into mining?
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It's not apples to apples, though. I couldn't easily tell what the expected earnings are from the Bitaxe, but the cheapest model is computing at 400 GH/s. By comparison, the Heatbit is 10 TH/s.
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Right, I realize. Let me check how much an antminer does. Max hash at 100Th/s! Very similar prices... I think heatbit is selling you a good looking package.
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Actually, it looks like the hashrate is 3.3 TH/s, which is just slightly more than an Antminer S19.
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I was looking at the s19j. I wonder if it will go on sale?
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Are those loud? I don't have a great place for a loud miner.
33 sats \ 1 reply \ @OT 28 Oct
Antminer s19 can do around 100TH
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Sorry, that was a per 100W comparison.
Avalon nano is best bang for buck (although closed source)
Believe you can do lightning payouts too
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but they're soooo ugly!
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Believe you can do lightning payouts too
Yeah, that's a nice feature
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @nym 29 Oct
Thanks for the reference.
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Oh man! I just pulled the trigger today on a handful of nano 3s. I was planning on writing about it here soon. They’re currently $130 ($160 for me after shipping) (if you get the black color for the US) from the manufacturer. Way cheaper than heatbit, and actually has enough hash to get an ROI at some point (I got cheep energy, gotta admit) through a pool.
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I'll be very interested to read that post.
Setup sounds very easy. Was that your experience?
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36 sats \ 1 reply \ @jasonb 29 Oct
I literally just put in the order today. I’ll let you know how it goes. Yeah, if you’re running a node, my experience is that mining in general is easy peasy. The hard part is not losing money.
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The hard part is not losing money
rip
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actually both are good, depending on the connection used.
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Can you elaborate on that?
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