Mine crypto in your livingroom
15 min read
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The best crypto miners that can run in your livingroom.
Most crypto mining rigs are big, heavy, loud, consume a lot of power, produce a lot of heat and are very expensive. Take the Bitmain Antminer S19 Pro, for instance, which sets you back around 12‘000 USD and has a noise level of 75db, which is about as loud as a kitchen blender - running non stop. Certainly not something you want to have running day and night in your living room.
In this article we look at crypto miners that produce passive income for you, and which you can put anywhere in your home, as long as there is a power outlet and an internet connection.
The 3 crypto miners we will look at below are all fairly small, light and quiet. And the best part is that they generate income for you while you sleep. All you have to do is to set it up initially and then it will start to make money for you. We are going to take a closer look at what the initial costs are, the estimated income each can produce as well as size and noise levels.
Helium Miner (Bobcat 300)
Bobcat 300 helium miner (image source: https://www.bobcatminer.com)
The Bobcat Miner 300 is one of the most popular devices for mining the Helium crypto currency (HNT). Helium is a radio frequency based network, which means the miner comes with an antenna. The higher up you can install the antenna in or around your home the better, since this will allow for it to be able to reach a greater number of Helium hotspots, thereby generating more money. Another important factor is where you live. While you need to be able to reach other Helium hotspots to expand its range, it’s not good if there are already a lot of hotspots around you due to greater competition.
To find out how many Helium miners are already in your neighbourhood, you can check the Helium explorer https://explorer.helium.com/ . Here you see a map which is divided into hexagons. Within each hexagon, it is possible to see the current Hotspot Miners. Moreover, you can see the details of each Miner in a hexagon, including what brand of miner hardware they use, what kind of antenna, how high above ground it is as well as their earning stats (how much they earned in the past 30 days). This way you can get a good idea of what your potential income could be with a similar setup.
The Bobcat Miner 300 for North America costs 429 USD and has an estimated shipping time of 20-28 weeks. The estimated monthly income it generates depends on several factors like your location, how many other miners are close by and other factors including the change in the value of the HNT currency. In our neighbourhood on the outskirts of Calgary, the range is between 30 and 200 USD.
Let‘s assume an average of 120 USD of revenue every month. This would mean you reached the return on investment (ROI) in 4 months and everything after that would be going straight into your pocket. The Bobcat 300 is, with 141x141x47 mm, about the size of a big chocolate box and is as quiet as a mouse. The power consumption is 5W (the Antminer S19 in comparison takes 3250W!) and the antenna has a range of around 10 miles (16km).
(+) Pros:
Compact size
Low initial cost
Low power consumption (5W)
(-) Cons:
Not scalable; you can only install one miner in your house
Revenue depends on your location (elevation, saturation)
Requires an antenna to be setup (the higher the better)
Where to buy: https://www.bobcatminer.com/
More information on Helium: https://www.helium.com
Awair Element (PlanetWatch)
Awair Element (Image source: https://www.getawair.com)
PlanetWatch is building a global air quality monitoring network, so that pollution hotspots can be detected in real time. In order to achieve this, there are several sensors available that you can set up in your house. In exchange for sending your air quality data to the network, you get rewarded with Planet tokens or Planets for short. Planets are utility tokens that are issued on the Algorand blockchain. For each valid measure that is sent to PlanetWatch, the sensor owner gets 80% of the Planets while 20% goes to PlanetWatch.
There is a maximum supply of Planet tokens, which is 4.500.000.000 and 95% of those tokens are used to reward air quality data that is sent to PlanetWatch.
PlanetWatch has 4 different types of air quality monitoring devices:
Type 1: Premium outdoor devices
Type 2: Consumer-grade outdoor devices
Type 3: Indoor devices
Type 4: Wearable and special devices
The Awair Element can track 5 key environmental factors: Temperature, Humidity, Co2, Toxic chemicals (TVOC‘s), Particulate Matter (PM2.5). The air data is shown in real time and can also be read directly on the device. This is a type 4 device, which means it needs a type 4 license from PlanetWatch in order to redeem Planet tokens.
Dimensions: 154x45x85mm
Weight: 698 gr.
Costs: 299 USD + Type 4 License (1 year: 42 USD, 2 years: 60 USD, 3 years: 84 USD)
Max estimated daily reward: 23.04000 Planet tokens (8.65 CAD/6.85 USD)
Estimated shipping time: 12 weeks.
Return on Investment (ROI) with a 1 year license: 2 months
Where to buy: https://store.getawair.com/products/awair-element
(+) Pros:
Displays Temperature, Humidity, Co2, Toxic chemicals and Particulate Matter on the device.
Small and quiet.
(-) Cons:
Not all countries are supported.
Not scalable.
The maximum number of available Planet tokens is limited.
Requirements:
Constant wifi connection.
Smartphone (iPhone or Android)
More information on PlanetWatch: https://www.planetwatch.us
IMPORTANT UPDATE: As of April 1st 2022 Awair is not longer providing data streams for Planetwatch! So it is no longer possible to mine Planet Coins with the Awair Element - see the official statement from Planetwatch here: https://www.planetwatch.io/important-update-on-awair-element-sensors/
Sensedge Mini (PlanetWatch)
Sensedge mini (image source: https://www.planetwatch.us)
The Sensedge mini is an indoor device that can measure temperature, humidity, particulate matter, volatile organic compounds and Co2. This is a Type 3 device and requires a Type 3 license from PlanetWatch.
Dimensions: 155x129x34mm
Weight: 370gr
Price: 699 USD + Type 3 license (1 year: 60 USD, 2 years: 90 USD, 3 years: 120 USD)
Max estimated daily reward: 46.31040 Planet tokens (17.39 CAD/13.77 USD)
Return on investment (ROI) with a 1 year license: 2 months
(+) Pros:
Small device, quiet.
(-) Cons:
Currently only waiting list
Not scalable
Not all countries are supported
The maximum number of available Planet tokens is limited.
Requirements:
Smartphone (iPhone or Android)
Where to buy: https://www.planetwatch.us/buy-a-sensors/
Xa-Miner XA416 (ScPrime)
Xa-Miner XA416 (image source: https://xaminer.net)
The Xa-Miner XA416 is a storage miner for the ScPrime distributed datacenter storage network. It is basically a device with storage capacity that you rent out to customers of the ScPrime datacenter in exchange for earning SCP tokens (1 SCP is currently 1.33 USD). The need for network storage (cloud storage) will increase in the future as TVs, tablets and smartphones come with higher resolutions. This will increase the need for more storage space (to save movies and photos). A decentralized solution like ScPrime has clear advantages over centralized providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS). It offers greater security since ScPrime has a worldwide distributed network. In contrast, if a data storage facility of a big company were to burn down (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-ovh-fire-idUSKBN2B20NU), thousands of websites and services would be unavailable. ScPrime’s service will also be S3 compatible, a protocol that is used by many developers for AWS, so it’s easy to move existing products from AWS over to ScPrime. And last but not least, the costs for using the network storage from ScPrime for customers will be more affordable, since there are no big datacenters that need to be secured and maintained.
Total capacity: 16 TB
Price: 1495 USD
Dimensions: 19.5 x 19.5x 24.9cm
Weight: 9kg
Power consumption: 200w
Return on investment (ROI) with 1 TB used storage: 8 months
Estimated monthly reward with 1 TB used storage: 130 SCP (with 16 TB used it could be 2080 SCP) see https://xaminerstats.com
Estimated shipping time: 6-8 weeks
(+) Pros
High rewards, and higher rewards possible in the future (for continuous time in service, location, performance, auditability).
Compact size (shoebox)
37.5% rebate paid in SCP
Scalable (you can buy multiple miners to increase the rewards)
(-) Cons
Needs permanent (fast) internet connection
High upfront investment
Where to buy: https://xaminer.net
More information on ScPrime: https://scpri.me
There is also a Xa-Miner with more capacity available and the possibility to build your own data storage miner. We will cover these topics in future articles. Make sure to subscribe to our newsletter so you don‘t miss any updates.