Zeus Wallet \ stacker news ~Design

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10.9k sats \ 27 comments \ @afolabitobi20 18h Design

For the Zeus wallet h8ers!😈 What do you really dislike about the product? Why do you dislike what you dislike🤔?

I'm definitely not a hater but I don't like the sync time when you start up the app.

I thought that Zeus could be a great wallet to onboard noobs as you can start with custodial ecash and work your way up to owning a channel. I think the sync time kills this idea though. It kinda needs to work instantly

32 sats \ 0 replies \ @Wumbo 17h

In my opinion, having a little bit more detailed of a load message might help.

Having a percentage complete syncing might not be technical doable but showing the different steps would give the user a better sense of sync progress.

Example:

Node Hand Shake
Node Balance retrieval
Etc...
Etc...

44 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 17h

good point! That's why I discussed this proposal on their github. We need somehow to speedup this process of "first time start". Is really hard to start explaining to a total noob, why is taking a while to sync, why is a node, why you need to know which peer are better etc. Are quite a long list of technical details that a total noob doesn't know, but are crucial.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @LibertasBR 11h

As a newbie, I understood that it was important to wait for synchronization, while I think it could be a later step followed by a more detailed explanation with or without infographics, as to why synchronization is important. I keep the app without channels because it gives me confidence to use it with other custodial accounts and wait for the ecash to arrive.

70 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 17h

I vouch for OP, they are part of a Designathlon of the Bitcoin Design Team, trying to find out what could be improved in Bitcoin wallet apps.

I would also ask all stackers that still didn't start using Zeus to give some feedback as total noobs.

Let's make Zeus more "normies fiendly" if we can, so we can onboard more nocoiners straight into self-custody with Zeus.

44 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b 14h

What do you really dislike about the product? Why do you dislike what you dislike🤔?

I hate that the LNC connection regularly fails, doesn't reconnect automatically, and I'm forced to hard reset the app to get it to reconnect.

In general, I love that Zeus gives me such detailed access to my node on the go, which is why I keep using it despite these frustrations. I just wish it worked better.

33 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 13h

I hate that the LNC connection regularly fails, doesn't reconnect automatically, and I'm forced to hard reset the app to get it to reconnect.

Easily the biggest issue I have with it.

80 sats \ 1 reply \ @javier 15h

I don't dislike it, I like it very much. Unfortunately every noob I've showed it says it is like a space ship, they don't understand a fuck, haha. But it also happens with Bluewallet, Phoenix, etc, although Zeus and Blixt are probably the most complicated ones.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 13h

Zeus is pretty simple to use for a power tool. It does so much that can be overwhelming to new users or people new to lightning. Its not easy to make an app that does this much and make it easy.

It will never be simple because it does far to much to be a simple app. I don't have the beginner's eyes anymore so the most valuable thing for making it newbie friendly would be watching new users use it and see what they struggle with.

11 sats \ 1 reply \ @BitcoinIsTheFuture 13h

Well, I went to it when Phoenix was banned in the US last year. Talking to others here Zeus seemed like a good self custody option. I’ve had nothing but problems with it. My lightning channels kept closing.Then it gets worse. I’ve got a large stack and the app won’t load the balance. After countless emails with Evan he can’t figure out why when I reinstall from the seed phrase, the app only loads about 50% and crashes. Honestly, I feel rugged as these sats are locked up and I can’t access them, so frustrating. Now he wants me to restore via Sparrow.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 11h

That is mainly the issue with bad neutrino peers on bad and not stable connection. Is not your fault that you don't know how to deal with that. Is about running a node on a mobile and people always do not realize this aspect. Advanced users knows how to avoid it but for noobs indeed is a hard task.

And this must be fixed somehow with better explanation or walkthrough indications for users, at startup.

My advice to all new users (as I described in my Zeus guide here):

do not run Zeus embedded node with Tor. Is useless and only get things worse. And is a false impression of "more privacy". It is not.
check your neutrino peers. Ping each one of them and remain only with 2 max 3 peers in the list for syncing. This aspect is crucial but ignored by many users. Here are some vouched neutrino peers but you can also connect to any other friend node if they have activated neutrino. Closer to your location is better, for a nice ping and sync.

btcd1.lnolymp.us | btcd2.lnolymp.us - for US region
sg.lnolymp.us - for Asia region
btcd-mainnet.lightning.computer - for US region
uswest.blixtwallet.com (Seattle) - for US region
europe.blixtwallet.com (Germany) - for EU region
asia.blixtwallet.com - for Asia region
node.eldamar.icu - for US region
noad.sathoarder.com - for US region
bb1.breez.technology | bb2.breez.technology - for US region
neutrino.shock.network - US region

a general list of nodes with neutrino activated https://bitnodes.io/nodes/?q=NODE_COMPACT_FILTERS

get used to keep your Zeus node in "Persistent mode". That means the LND service stays always online (if you have good neutrino peers) and you will have a nice synced node. Keep this "persistent mode" all the time you need to use Zeus to pay/receive. During the night you can shut it down. It doesn't consume too much battery.

21 sats \ 5 replies \ @kepford 13h

Ha! Never seen a Zeus hater. Zeus is so good.

57 sats \ 3 replies \ @DarthCoin 12h

pretend to be a hater then :) or at least a total noob

21 sats \ 2 replies \ @kepford 11h

Its not easy to pretend to be a noob.

5 sats \ 1 reply \ @DarthCoin 11h

yes indeed, you can't unlearn all the tricks :) are deep inside your mind and calling you

11 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 11h

Exactly. You can't regain the beginners mind.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @028559d218 12h

Is is good. We will need good products like Zeus in the coming years.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Rothbardian_fanatic 7h

I’m neither a hater nor a lover. I don’t have the time or the temperament, any more, for setting up new things and going through a steep learning curve. Been there done that enough times to call it quits on many new things. It is the main reason why you don’t see a horse or a gun on my nym!

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @fiatbad 9h

I think much of the development focus has gone toward using LSPs and/or running running the node in-app. What I'm frustrated with is the lack of development going into using Zues as a way to connect to a stationary node, running on a dedicated hardware elsewhere.

I run a Start9 node, and use Zues to connect to the Lightning Terminal app on my node so I can access LND.

It works great.... except 75% of the time it just doesn't work. I constantly get connection issues.

I was on vacation in Canada this week. I used Zues to pay for beer at a brewery there, and it worked great. When I went up for a second round, I got the big red screen telling me there was a connection issue and I needed to restart. Multiple restarts did not fix the issue. I usually have to restart the Lightning Terminal app on my node to get back to a good state.

It feels like a simple connection thing. Perhaps a few extra retries or something could fix it. Probably an easy fix. But it's been like this for years. A friend of mine has the exact setup I do, and reports the same thing. It only works half the time.

At first, I figured it was just early day buggish-ness. But it's been like this for years. I cannot rely on it for payments. I have to have a backup custodial wallet such as Strike. I've been quite discouraged recently about this. I guess it's time to research some alternative setups/apps.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @anon 8h

Yes, don’t use LNC — it’s unreliable; I think that’s on Lightning Terminal and not Zeus… maybe.

Go for Tailscale or split-tunnel VPN to your home network. Performance will improve dramatically.

I agree that too much effort went into the “node in the phone” concept — it’s not actually very reliable nor feasible and I was disappointed when Evan went this direction versus more “means of linking a wallet” to a great UI. Did no one learn anything from Blixt performance?!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @028559d218 8h

I find the same thing. It works... but the connection times out a lot. I can make a payment and as long as I keep the screen open it's fine. But if I close the iphone screen for a while I have to 'reconnect' and it's definitely annoying.

I could turn off TOR (this is a 'remote'/server node) but the app literally recommends Tor or a VPN on the iphone for privacy. What do you guys think?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @BallLightning 11h

There are some very dumb UX issues.

I would like to have the app allowing me to see balances and possibly to make transactions (when possible) before it is synced. It can use the state before the last time the app was started and execute the transactions once it is synced.

When starting sometimes it stops syncing and never resumes. Force closing the app is required

Sometimes errors cause some screens to fuck up. For example when olympus lsp returns an error that an invoice should be 1 hour max, this error persists when I try to create another invoice.

Automatically checking the lightning url incoming payments on startup doesn't work at all.

I would like an option "persistent lnd" to be able to be set to automatically disable itself when all the invoices expire and there are no hanging htlcs.

And last... I received contradicting responses whether lightning itself allows this, but I would like to be able to sweep the whole lighting channel balance. Like "send everything and close the channel at the same time" thing. So that there is no some small utxo left behind.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @LibertasBR 11h

I feel like it's too complicated, even with all the support material that seems to have been written for people who are already familiar with LN. It took me a while to figure out how to do certain things, even with Darthcoin's guides. But it's not for me, since I don't have a lot of sats movement in the month at the moment.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @anon 11h

I connect using LNC and NWC…I also get frustrated with LNC sometimes taking multiple app restarts to connect. LNC is mission critical for ON and OFF chain use!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @suraz 12h

It's an okay type of wallet.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @denlillaapan 13h

don't know it, don't use it... Like my friend so viciously says to, "What do you think about X?"

"...I don't."

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Alice_and_the_Wonderland 15h

I've been put off by the recent changes to their LSP channel policy. Now, to use Zeus channels, I either have to pay recurring fees for channel extensions or keep outbound liquidity higher than the inbound.

I've had a few channels force closed because of too much inbound liquidity. But the ability to open a channel to another node is still a major plus of this wallet.