So it looks like the whole point of this gadget would be to allow folks to use/abuse the Bitcoin network to do "stuff" that isn't actually related to Bitcoin (perhaps). That would make sense within the context of the "Blockchain is preloaded on the SD card". Kinda like using a BTC wallet address instead an IP address to communicate with somebody maybe? The blockchain seems poorly engineered with rising difficulty and such, but maybe this is the idea. I don't really understand why a "machine" would need to send money to another machine. Why or when a machine would need or want money is beyond me. I thought money was an invention for people, not for machines.

Oh well, fun to watch, since I have zero of that $116M at risk. Maybe I should blow $400 to just find out what's really special, and what's just cobbled together from Micro-Center and the Raspberry Pi foundation.

I also noticed the "datacenter backend" mentioned. Is that something that 21Inc is running or what? I always wonder if when a company supplies a "service" that's part of your product, what happens if/when they go under. I remember a class of DVD player that had specially encoded DVD's that you would purchase cheap, and then get a two day play period. You could pay more and then "own" the disk. That only worked until the company went under, and then your "owned" disks were unplayable, because the server disappeared when the company died.

I would say that probably the most valuable aspect of this announcement and mid-November delivery will be to demonstrate their actual chips. I expect it will help satisfy their investors (i.e. the $116M of VC money), that they actually produced something like they said they would. It also will allow other folks to actually tinker with it and perhaps do something with it. That's probably secondary in their mind.

As a $400 100GH miner it will fall flat. It may well be more successful than the $200 SFARDS development board though. After all, you still have some useful hardware in 6 months (e.g. Pi, SD card, etc). 

I will also breathlessly await the next IoT thing from 21Inc, so I can laugh at how silly it is to try and make everything that has electricity do something with BTC. 

@Zvisha: Best of luck with your new job. I hope your time at Spondoolies was lucrative.

That's technology from about 18 months ago. The power consumption for each board was much lower, and hence needed a lot less cooling as a result. I don't expect that Bitmain will be selling boards and not whole miners. Even if they did, it wouldn't actually save you any money. You will need their controller either way, and there's precious little to be gained by trying to engineer a better cooling solution. The "Green boards from 2014" weren't a complete miner, and hence needed the customer (i.e. the mine) to figure out the cooling.

I too worry about Spondoolies. I have zero idea on who was the "weak partner" in the merger with BTCS. After I invested some in buying BTCS stock (pink sheet), I found a video by them. The primary thrust that I took away was "Look at what a great deal we got on X (e.g. shelving, space, wiring, etc)". It didn't instill real confidence that they were really going to go anywhere. They seemed to be looking to put together a low-cost facility for mining. Maybe a little better thought out than what you see described in the various forums here, but not a lot better.

Just my opinion. I hope Spondoolies has just been itching to say something about a great new bit of gear, and will be able to do so soon. All the best to Guy and company!

If folks are actually interested in this, I would encourage you to visit their website mentioned by the OP. There you will find a FAQ tab. When you read that, it's obvious they didn't intend to make a "100GH home miner" in the usual sense of the phrase. It's all wrapped up in something to do with you (the purchaser) doing something related to Bitcoin, that this gadget will help facilitate. I will freely admit I don't understand it, so maybe some of you folks will see how it obviously applies to you, though probably NOT as a miner in the usual sense.

I don't see the connection to a "Mining Lightbulb", but maybe I missed it in the FAQ, though I don't think so.

While I won't take apart the obvious math errors in the previous parts of the discussion, I will note that one of the Amazon pictures show a more or less breakdown of the parts that make up the total result. The Pi is obvious. What I also noticed was what looks to be a small fan. From the scale and such, I'll bet it's one of those 40mm fans that are typically in a 1U server.

Maybe 21Inc found a quiet version of those. The "shroud" looks to direct the fans airflow over the chip.

My bet is that the .16J/GH is at 50GH, and not 120GH. That works out to 8W which is interesting and within striking distance of a USB port that's can supply almost 2Amps. Push it to 120GH, and you are no longer in USB territory.

As mentioned above, a used Avalon 4.1 will likely meet your desire for quiet, though it too needs a Raspberry Pi or TPlink support processor. They are only found used, and pretty pricey too boot. I have an SP20, and while it can be made quieter if down-clocked hard, it's hardly "Living Room" quiet. I think the S5 can be made quieter, but it's never going to be actually quiet.

I think then that you would be most comfortable with one or more the Compac stick miners. You'll was a USB hub assuming you want more than 10-12GH. Everything I've heard about the U# is that it is unreliable. You could also look at one of the Rbox 32GH miners used. Those are very reliable in my opinion, though they are more like 1W/GH. Very quiet, and need a PC to be attached via USB to a PC or Pi. I ran 3 on a Raspberry Pi for 6 months without intervention. They date from 2014.

In terms of the "small home mining" game, nothing recent will fit the bill. The s5 and new S7 are LOUD and hot.

Don't expect to make any money, maybe you break even over a long period of time.

I too got the E-mail from Spondoolies merger with BTCS. I really wish the Spondoolies folks well. Right now it's not obvious that merging with BTCS will produce anything that an individual home miner will care about, if anything. I hope it goes well, since I am a minuscule shareholder of BTCS (i.e. a few 100 shares). At this point it looks even riskier than Bitcoin itself.

And unlike the S7, Phillip didn't need hearing protection to take the pictures of his 130GH Stick Farm!

The S7 is powerful, loud, and Hot.

The Gecko sticks are cool, silent, and SEXY. The blinking lights are the "Cats Meow"!   

The drop will be from 3600 BTC/day to 1800 BTC/day (on average). I remain baflled though on what drives the price of Bitcoin. Yes, I know about "Supply and Demand", but I have yet to see a coherent explanation of how either supply or demand are measured. I do know that if by some miracle BTC price went to $1000, the supply would increase dramatically, not from new miners, but rather current holders of coins. By the same token, I have no idea what drives the demand for BTC. For me personally, I have zero actual desire for BTC as a currency.

The 2nd one you quoted, might be better. However, the marketing numbers still don't quite add up:

- 12V/4A power supply = 48W
- 5V/1A per USB port as described = 5W/port

It's still a bit short for 10 ports, but closer than 36W (i.e. 12V/3A).

It's an OK hub, but I never got it to work reliably beyond 6 actual U1/U2 miners. I tried all different combinations, and it had 12V coming from an old AT power supply. It's a dandy5-6 port with wide spacing. If you are expecting to actually support 10 sticks, I predict you will be disappointed. Maybe it could be improved with some internal "surgery". I didn't try that. It does take in 12V, so there is obvious a 12V-to-5V step down converter.

I have a little info for Luke-Jr: My use of -d? -D produced about 20K bytes of output that I haven't tried to post here. I'll find a way to provide the whole file. I am however providing the last few lines which may provide a clue:

 [2015-09-17 18:30:05] lowlevel_scan: Found vcom device at com:12 (path=\\.\COM12, vid=0000, pid=0000, manuf=(null), prod=(null), serial=(null))
 [2015-09-17 18:30:05] lowlevel_scan: Found vcom device at com:11 (path=\\.\COM11, vid=0000, pid=0000, manuf=(null), prod=(null), serial=(null))
 [2015-09-17 18:30:05] lowlevel_scan: Found vcom device at com:10 (path=\\.\COM10, vid=0000, pid=0000, manuf=(null), prod=(null), serial=(null))
 [2015-09-17 18:30:05] Devices detected:

What's noteworthy about these is that COM10-COM12 are the device names that Windows assigned to the sticks. I can see them in a Control Panel display, and they are found as "AMU" if I add them using the \\.\COMxx path name after bfgminer is started.

One thing I just thought of: This system is actually my work laptop, and it's Windows 7 Enterprise. I am however NOT the Administrator of this box. I wonder if perhaps device detection is impacted by that?

Thanks for your interest.

Sounds like a great idea! That'll be a mere $200/bulb. They are also a little slow at only 50GH. Just hope your company doesn't mind that their WiFi network goes crazy when the lights get turned on......

 

I have been tinkering with my 3 sticks, and been using bfgminer on a couple of different Windows 7 boxes. I observed a kind of odd behavior that I thought folks might find useful/interesting..

I had assumed it would always be best to have the sticks plugged in prior to starting bfgminer. I have yet to have example where bfgminer discovers anything on it's initial pass at start up. I then have gone through the process of "adding" them after bfgminer was started. I hade to use the \\.\COMxx reference. They would usually add just fine, and they showed up as an AMU.

Without actually realizing what I was trying, I plugged in a 2nd stick while bfgminer was running. I noticed in a couple of seconds, the LED started to flash. I then looked back at the screen, and bfgminer had automagically added a new miner to it's list and started using it. In this case though, it was a "CBM" miner and not an AMU. I then hot-plugged the 3rd miner and it to was detected and added as a CBM.

I then shut it all down, and unplugged the sticks after letting them cool (no fan). I started bfgminer with no sticks and over the course of 10-15 seconds hot-plugged all 3 sticks and I now have 3 CBM miners running at about 10-11GH each.

It appears to me that hot-plugging is actually "better", which I found surprising.

I agree with the overall consensus that these are great little stick miners.

Thanks sidehack and novak!!!

It seems that you need to plan to sell your miner in the next 3-6 months, and hope that it's value hasn't declined too much. If for some reason a newer/different miner arrives, then that plan blows up big time. And also assume BTC price doesn't decline during those 3-6 months.

You really have to stretch your assumptions to make things work these days, particularly with new gear, expensive, gear.

A random thought on how upgrades might influence a loan.

If you are trying to get a loan for an S7, the financials look pretty sketchy to begin with, for most folks. Electricity prices, initial cost, difficulty jumps, BTC price changes all push out the "Time to Break Even" to several months in the future. In some cases more than a year. If you then throw in the possibility of an upgraded S7+ that diminishes the current value of your shiny new S7, it makes the whole thing look even shakier.

Think about buying a house. You finances aren't really strong, the price is high and so forth. Do you want to also tell your mortgage company that you expect the value of the house to decline by 10% in the next 6 months (or less)? It's silly to think you can hide this, but some folks might think they can get a loan by trying to hide pertinent info.