Any Helium miners here?
Discussion
Been trying to learn a bit more about this, the Discord on this stuff is a non stop flow of chatter so quite hard to filter out anything actually useful.
Looks like the hardware is still impossible to get without waiting until next year and of course, as is usual, the scalpers have been hard at it hoovering up crates of miner hardware and re-selling at 3x the price!
There also seems to be a lot of shilling going around promoting particular hardware, which turns out to be unreliable or have zero tech support.
I'm in a fairly rural location so the nearest other units are about 7 miles away, so I think, with the right antenna, I might be able to reach of a couple of clusters of other hotspots.
It's all a bit mad with the heady mix of the mulitiple minefields of crypto currency, networking IT, radio transmission theory and mad feeding frenzies for buying iffy chinese made hardware with half working software...
On the flipside, there does appear to be some moderate income to be made from it, while it lasts.
Anyone with any actual experience of setting one up and what the issues are running it, as well as how you get your hard earned HNT's out as quids?
Looks like the hardware is still impossible to get without waiting until next year and of course, as is usual, the scalpers have been hard at it hoovering up crates of miner hardware and re-selling at 3x the price!
There also seems to be a lot of shilling going around promoting particular hardware, which turns out to be unreliable or have zero tech support.
I'm in a fairly rural location so the nearest other units are about 7 miles away, so I think, with the right antenna, I might be able to reach of a couple of clusters of other hotspots.
It's all a bit mad with the heady mix of the mulitiple minefields of crypto currency, networking IT, radio transmission theory and mad feeding frenzies for buying iffy chinese made hardware with half working software...
On the flipside, there does appear to be some moderate income to be made from it, while it lasts.
Anyone with any actual experience of setting one up and what the issues are running it, as well as how you get your hard earned HNT's out as quids?
Weird.
If I understand this correctly, it's a way to access lots of cpu power by networking IoT devices?
The cpu power is used to mine a crypto currency called Helium.
Do IoT devices have much cpu power?
Presumably they will be compromised by having to perform decryption stuff, and quite possibly there may be significant security issues related to allowing the Helium network into your home wifi via LAN IoT devices.
If I understand this correctly, it's a way to access lots of cpu power by networking IoT devices?
The cpu power is used to mine a crypto currency called Helium.
Do IoT devices have much cpu power?
Presumably they will be compromised by having to perform decryption stuff, and quite possibly there may be significant security issues related to allowing the Helium network into your home wifi via LAN IoT devices.
rfisher said:
Weird.
If I understand this correctly, it's a way to access lots of cpu power by networking IoT devices?
The cpu power is used to mine a crypto currency called Helium.
Do IoT devices have much cpu power?
Presumably they will be compromised by having to perform decryption stuff, and quite possibly there may be significant security issues related to allowing the Helium network into your home wifi via LAN IoT devices.
No, it's a network of IoT gateways that use Lora radio to communicate with each other and eventually other devices that need low data rate comms. Normally the problem with wide area radio networks is the infrastructure. Helium's idea is to make joe public buy the infrastructure and install it in their houses. Eventually covering most the world with small radio cells. Each gateway is also attached to the owners internet, thus providing the gateway from the LoRa device onto the net.If I understand this correctly, it's a way to access lots of cpu power by networking IoT devices?
The cpu power is used to mine a crypto currency called Helium.
Do IoT devices have much cpu power?
Presumably they will be compromised by having to perform decryption stuff, and quite possibly there may be significant security issues related to allowing the Helium network into your home wifi via LAN IoT devices.
Why would joe public want to do this? Well this is the clever bit. Create a new crypto currency called Helium. Put some software in each gateway allowing it to 'mine' Helium (maintain the crypto blockchain). By licensing this software into approved hardware (usually a Raspberry Pi and a radio modem) Helium ensures that only the radio network gateways can mine it. They are not like Bitcoin miners with megawatts of GPU's running. Just a 5w mains load...
The miner gets paid in Helium coins HNT, as they contact other nodes. As time goes by, the miner accumulates HNT's. The owner gets some dosh every week, Helium gets a global radio network for free and IoT vendors get internet access everywhere.
Eventually they may also roll out a 5G network but this might be an issue in the UK. It will really upset the mobile phone providers if they do!
That's my understanding anyway!
The is the added 'excitement' that your box is earning a crypto currency so that value changes in terms of exchange rate along with other crypto's, so you might be getting a quid a day, or if the exchange rate goes up, you might get a tenner a day.
There is a lot of variablilty in how the actual radio comms generates income and I don't fully understand the neuances of that yet. There is also variablility in radio comms quality and range depending on mounting location, line of sight to other nodes, antennas etc etc.
There are a LOT of people buying the boxes and putting them in other peoples houses in order to get better spread of their nodes. They then offer the 'host' a cut of the monthly earnings the node has made. This might be 20% or some as high at 50%. Obviously the home owner could just buy their own box, but if they aren't tech savvy, they probably wouldn't want to do it. There is also the issue of not being able to buy the hardware. Last week, one company sold 8,000 units in 11 mins. Needless to say scalping bots probably got most of them and their website and payment system went T.U. when people were trying to buy them...
The other issue is that there's no point in buying these if you live in central london or any other big city as these are getting close to full coverage now.
Ideally, you want to put a dozen or so in a town or village, with at least 1km between them.
There's an interesting interactive map showing all the nodes in the world and what they earn, every day! Ignore the weird node names, it's just a made up three word code like Giant Purple Turtle.
https://explorer.helium.com/
I understand most of this, but the crypto side is new to me. It may be a flash in the pan, but at the moment, we are still in start of the flash!
CharlesdeGaulle said:
I'm feeling pretty daft now. I thought it was a bot-driven loony nutter post. Now I realise it's a real thing I'll shut up and read and learn.
Ha! I've never been called a bot before! Is that the opposite of the Turing test...Loony nutter? well maybe I have been called that before...
Honestly its a genuine post and I am interested to know if anyone here has any experience of setting these boxes up.
I'm actually a bit gutted I didn't find out about it 6 months ago when the first boxes were offered for sale, but now there is a 3-6 month waiting list / lead time!
lawrencec said:
Yes i have a helium miner its a interesting thing
I take the profits and re invest it in to yield farms
I have the bobcat and a 5.8dbi antenna
So how has the Bobcat been? Does it need constant supervision/tinkering with to keep running?I take the profits and re invest it in to yield farms
I have the bobcat and a 5.8dbi antenna
There seem to be many people having issues with units going off line for days on end waiting to resynch etc.
paolow said:
I would already be doing this if i could get my hands on the hardware (direct from a vendor) but its a complete nause.
Paolow castle is perfectly sited for this - though I note local users/providers are increasing all the time.
Yeah, tell me about it! I have an order in with delivery expected in January but I suspect it will be February.Paolow castle is perfectly sited for this - though I note local users/providers are increasing all the time.
Too bad you can't just make one yourself...
Friend of mine is doing this, he's got 3 units set up and is looking for spots for the other 2 units he's got.
He bought a scanner/logger so he can mount it in his lorry and map areas as he's driving about.
Seems there are a lot of problems with the system as it stands with some people spoofing networks and other ways of cheating.
He bought a scanner/logger so he can mount it in his lorry and map areas as he's driving about.
Seems there are a lot of problems with the system as it stands with some people spoofing networks and other ways of cheating.
Edited by dudleybloke on Sunday 31st October 14:16
dudleybloke said:
Friend of mine is doing this, he's got 3 units set up and is looking for spots for the other 2 units he's got.
He bought a scanner/logger so he can mount it in his lorry and map areas as he's driving about.
Seems there are a lot of problems with the system as it stands with some people spoofing networks and other ways of cheating.
So does the Lora board show anythnig different to what's on the Helium explorer page?He bought a scanner/logger so he can mount it in his lorry and map areas as he's driving about.
Seems there are a lot of problems with the system as it stands with some people spoofing networks and other ways of cheating.
Edited by dudleybloke on Sunday 31st October 14:16
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