21 co introducing bitcoin [mining+] computer for $399.99 (unofficial thread)

[Biodom]

Bamm!
https://21.co/
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014RD021C?camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B014RD021C

coming on Nov 16, opened for preorder. They will probably explain everything tomorrow at the Cisco meet.

The 21 Bitcoin Computer is the first computer with native hardware and software support for the Bitcoin Protocol.

It allows you to:

Buy digital goods with the constant stream of bitcoin mined by a 21 Bitcoin Chip
Sell anything to anyone for bitcoin with the built-in 21 Micropayments Server
Easily build Bitcoin-payable apps, services, and devices
Operate it as a standalone computer, or connect it to any Mac, Windows, or Linux machine

It includes:

A powerful command line interface
A 128 GB SD card loaded with a full copy of the Blockchain
A suite of pre-configured Bitcoin-dependent software
All the items you need to get started - including a WiFi adapter, laptop-to-device cable, Raspberry Pi 2, and power supply

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[cryptoglance]

$400 for an API, a couple apps, and 50-125GH of hashing @ 0.16gh/j ?

[Biodom]

$400 for an API, a couple apps, and 50-125GH of hashing @ 0.16gh/j ?

redditors think that it would be a developer tool and a way to get bitcoin income from your unique services.

[J4bberwock]

No hashrate, no technical specs...

Edit: they are in the FAQ, but it doesn't really change the statement that this is quite expensive for what it is.


If I really wanted something similar, I'd buy a RPi 2 with 1 or 2 of sidehack's usb miners, it'll be cheaper, and I'll support community.

[MCHouston]

No hashrate, no technical specs...

This is from their page its pretty far down the list though.

"21 Bitcoin Chip has an efficiency of approximately 0.16 Joules per Gigahash and can calculate 50-125 Gigahashes per second."

[Biodom]

No hashrate, no technical specs...

This is from their page its pretty far down the list though.

"21 Bitcoin Chip has an efficiency of approximately 0.16 Joules per Gigahash and can calculate 50-125 Gigahashes per second."

micropayments services support is maybe something that could be exciting, mining alone-of course not, despite pretty good efficiency of 0.16w/Gh.
College students might like to fiddle with this.

In addition:

Because the 21 Bitcoin Computer is a full computer, you can make essentially any internet-accessible device bitcoin-rentable.

This basically means that it would be easy to rent out your hashing power if you want to do it without going through third party services.

[majestymage]

expensive but interesting.. maybe the next generation it will be a all in one gadget( miner-computer-wallet-etc  )

[notlist3d]

No hashrate, no technical specs...

This is from their page its pretty far down the list though.

"21 Bitcoin Chip has an efficiency of approximately 0.16 Joules per Gigahash and can calculate 50-125 Gigahashes per second."

I really want to justify it to be able to try something from them.  But at 400 dollars for a RPI and a board thrown on top I cant do that.   

This has to be one huge profit margin item.  But i find the joules per gigahash interesting they are beating the S7.  If they would make a "real" miner with that chip could be nice.

[notlist3d]

No hashrate, no technical specs...

This is from their page its pretty far down the list though.

"21 Bitcoin Chip has an efficiency of approximately 0.16 Joules per Gigahash and can calculate 50-125 Gigahashes per second."

I really want to justify it to be able to try something from them.  But at 400 dollars for a RPI and a board thrown on top I cant do that.   

This has to be one huge profit margin item.  But i find the joules per gigahash interesting they are beating the S7.  If they would make a "real" miner with that chip could be nice.

https://blockchain.info/pools

4% of the network, I am pretty sure they have real miners with that chip just nothing we have seen yet.

By the way it is 128gb sd card (50$)
rpi 2 and wifi adapter (50$)
120gh stick miner (50-100$)
board with unique api and tools (full node out of the box )~200$

it is a lot in one package but it is the very first release and it isn't meant for everyone according to their site "As we have noted above: this is a machine built for developers and early adopters. "

When they push out for the mass population expect a different price and a much nicer package.

Sure they have it internally.  But we don't really know if we will see them anytime soon.  I am happy they are at releasing something even though i think it is more PR then a product they expect sales on.

If they release "real" miners at a decent price and more efficient then the S7 then I think it will be exciting. I hope they do choose to release more to public as that would help instead of having 1 main company like it is now.

[Biodom]

No hashrate, no technical specs...

This is from their page its pretty far down the list though.

"21 Bitcoin Chip has an efficiency of approximately 0.16 Joules per Gigahash and can calculate 50-125 Gigahashes per second."

I really want to justify it to be able to try something from them.  But at 400 dollars for a RPI and a board thrown on top I cant do that.    

This has to be one huge profit margin item.  But i find the joules per gigahash interesting they are beating the S7.  If they would make a "real" miner with that chip could be nice.

https://blockchain.info/pools

4% of the network, I am pretty sure they have real miners with that chip just nothing we have seen yet.

By the way it is 128gb sd card (50$)
rpi 2 and wifi adapter (50$)
120gh stick miner (50-100$)
board with unique api and tools (full node out of the box )~200$

it is a lot in one package but it is the very first release and it isn't meant for everyone according to their site "As we have noted above: this is a machine built for developers and early adopters. "

When they push out for the mass population expect a different price and a much nicer package.

Sure they have it internally.  But we don't really know if we will see them anytime soon.  I am happy they are at releasing something even though i think it is more PR then a product they expect sales on.

If they release "real" miners at a decent price and more efficient then the S7 then I think it will be exciting. I hope they do choose to release more to public as that would help instead of having 1 main company like it is now.

I think the gist of it is that the aim of this product is to get you bitcoin income stream for services in addition to mining.

[bitcoinarnold]

$400 for an API, a couple apps, and 50-125GH of hashing @ 0.16gh/j ?

redditors think that it would be a developer tool and a way to get bitcoin income from your unique services.

now this is interesting. may buy one to host a couple of my side projects that are laying around

[Mikestang]

Buy digital goods with the constant stream of bitcoin mined by a 21 Bitcoin Chip

Hmm, I wonder what types of goods I'll be able to purchase with my constant stream of 10 cents per day (assuming free electricity)?

This thing will never ROI, let alone generate any income worth spending.

This is what over $100,000,000 in investment yields?  Color me unimpressed.

If you polled "the bitcoin community" I bet the #1 thing most requested would be affordable, efficient, quiet home-scale miners for the masses.  A "bitcoin computer" like this probably wouldn't even make the top ten list.

[bitcoinarnold]

$400 for an API, a couple apps, and 50-125GH of hashing @ 0.16gh/j ?

redditors think that it would be a developer tool and a way to get bitcoin income from your unique services.

now this is interesting. may buy one to host a couple of my side projects that are laying around

I am not sure I understand how this would work, it mentions an example of a 3d printer is it saying you could set the cost of printing an item by weight or cm and someone could pay it and access your 3d printer all without any interaction of you until you print it to them or something along those lines?

judging from what I see here https://21.co/#section-env it looks like a CLI to host/buy/sell digital endpoints (API's). I have some side projects related to sentiment analysis / stock market analysis, I'd like to do something with instead of having them rot in my /projects folder.  

[ny2cafuse]

21 has a bunch of positions listed on Angel.Co:

https://angel.co/21/jobs

They claim to have developed a chip that can be put into any internet connected device.  The RPi computer aside, it would interesting to see what they can do with their chip, and whether you start seeing mainstream point of sale systems with integrated bitcoin hardware/software.

-Fuse

[alh]

21 has a bunch of positions listed on Angel.Co:

https://angel.co/21/jobs

They claim to have developed a chip that can be put into any internet connected device.  The RPi computer aside, it would interesting to see what they can do with their chip, and whether you start seeing mainstream point of sale systems with integrated bitcoin hardware/software.

-Fuse

If it is their same chip in this miner 125gh in a lightbulb or other devices seems pretty damn nice actually, I may be doing the math wrong but 125gh/s would be 20w right?

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.

[Biodom]

21 has a bunch of positions listed on Angel.Co:

https://angel.co/21/jobs

They claim to have developed a chip that can be put into any internet connected device.  The RPi computer aside, it would interesting to see what they can do with their chip, and whether you start seeing mainstream point of sale systems with integrated bitcoin hardware/software.

-Fuse

I like the names of some of their positions: "Growth hacker"-sounds interesting.

[Biodom]

21 has a bunch of positions listed on Angel.Co:

https://angel.co/21/jobs

They claim to have developed a chip that can be put into any internet connected device.  The RPi computer aside, it would interesting to see what they can do with their chip, and whether you start seeing mainstream point of sale systems with integrated bitcoin hardware/software.

-Fuse

If it is their same chip in this miner 125gh in a lightbulb or other devices seems pretty damn nice actually, I may be doing the math wrong but 125gh/s would be 20w right?

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.

20 light bulbs (say, each $15, 20w=125Gh for mining, rest for light)=2.5TH, then it all converges through wi-fi on this device and you've got 2.5-2.6Th for $700 and only 416-420W used for mining.  
Edited: 20w for lamp, resulting in slightly different power numbers.

[notlist3d]

21 has a bunch of positions listed on Angel.Co:

https://angel.co/21/jobs

They claim to have developed a chip that can be put into any internet connected device.  The RPi computer aside, it would interesting to see what they can do with their chip, and whether you start seeing mainstream point of sale systems with integrated bitcoin hardware/software.

-Fuse

If they can do it on any internet connected device they do not impress with RPI.  RPI has already done a lot with mining so it's nothing new there.  Could have went a lot more of a finished product.

Have they made any public statements that they will or will not sell bigger miners to public?

[alh]

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.

[ny2cafuse]

21 has a bunch of positions listed on Angel.Co:

https://angel.co/21/jobs

They claim to have developed a chip that can be put into any internet connected device.  The RPi computer aside, it would interesting to see what they can do with their chip, and whether you start seeing mainstream point of sale systems with integrated bitcoin hardware/software.

-Fuse

I like the names of some of their positions: "Growth hacker"-sounds interesting.

Growth hacker is a pretty common term nowadays with tech startups.  It's basically a marketing specialist.  Data scientist is another term I've been fond of... basically a DB code monkey.


Back to 21 though.  I could see this being a big part of the attempt for IOT.  Kingcolex has the idea.  I could see putting these in the LED, wifi-enabled, bulbs that have huge heatsinks.  I'd replace all the lights in my house! 

I applied for the support engineer position.  I'll see if I get a call. lol

-Fuse

[alh]

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.

[Biodom]

21 has a bunch of positions listed on Angel.Co:

https://angel.co/21/jobs

They claim to have developed a chip that can be put into any internet connected device.  The RPi computer aside, it would interesting to see what they can do with their chip, and whether you start seeing mainstream point of sale systems with integrated bitcoin hardware/software.

-Fuse

I like the names of some of their positions: "Growth hacker"-sounds interesting.

Growth hacker is a pretty common term nowadays with tech startups.  It's basically a marketing specialist.  Data scientist is another term I've been fond of... basically a DB code monkey.


Back to 21 though.  I could see this being a big part of the attempt for IOT.  Kingcolex has the idea.  I could see putting these in the LED, wifi-enabled, bulbs that have huge heatsinks.  I'd replace all the lights in my house!  

I applied for the support engineer position.  I'll see if I get a call. lol

-Fuse

i thought data scientist is rather an expert in R.

I also see an appeal in this:

In terms of physical goods, you can also use the 21 Bitcoin Computer to rent out any internet-accessible device on a per-use basis. For example, you can allow people to submit jobs to printers and 3D printers for bitcoin, or set up a smart lock that accepts bitcoin to open a door. Because the 21 Bitcoin Computer is a full computer, you can make essentially any internet-accessible device bitcoin-rentable.

It does not specifically mentioned lamps, but if it has wi-fi capabilities and so do lamps, presumably, then 21 co device could act as a bridge, I guess.
If "mining" lamps would produce light as a normal lamp would and cost $15, I don't see a problem to get them. My master bathroom alone has 12 lamps, so I can easily accommodate 20-30 of those around the house. instead of renting, you could just push your work to a pool via the 21 co thingie.

[torepia]

Imagine a fridge that can detect what needs to be ordered, and automatically order it, on the blockchain. Or send the owner a message on the blockchain (small miner for txfee is handy here).
Have I lost it? 

Amazing product imo.

[sidehack]

I'm a big fan of using the blockchain and microtransactions to send messages. Nothing supports miners and the network like thousands of no-fee dust transactions with additional data payloads.

On the subject of the feasibility of mining lightbulbs and why it's pretty universally a bad idea, there's other threads already discussing that point.

[ny2cafuse]

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.

I realize that they probably weren't aiming to make a home miner, but you better believe that if it can hash, people will make it hash.  The fact that they are claiming the following makes me think that they will push the mining capabilities, regardless of speed:

The 21 Bitcoin Chip is an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) specifically designed to provide a constant stream of bitcoin to your computer as a system resource.

So yeah, a fridge with automatic ordering capabilities, that ever couple of months buys you a free gallon of milk on what you've mined.  I'd dig it.  Honestly, the point of sale systems with integrated Bitcoin protocols though is the key.  And think about all the talk about those 9 banks adopting blockchain technology.  This could be a precursor to a larger financial system that hasn't been put together yet.

Bringing blockchain technology to any device opens a lot of possibilities.

I'm a big fan of using the blockchain and microtransactions to send messages. Nothing supports miners and the network like thousands of no-fee dust transactions with additional data payloads.

On the subject of the feasibility of mining lightbulbs and why it's pretty universally a bad idea, there's other threads already discussing that point.

Once ASICs get to the absolute minimum of power consumption per hash, I'm pretty sure you'll see people putting chips in anything to sell a product.  The new RonCo rotisserie oven will have a damn ASIC mining chip in it for all we know.  "Just set it and forget it... until you have enough BTC to make a minimum transaction to wallet."

i thought data scientist is rather an expert in R.

Or python.  In fact, most new startups don't even really care what language you use as long as you can quantify qualitative data.  Most of these tech startups really just need a Tableau developer, and they'd have what they needed.  But that's a story for another thread.

-Fuse

[sidehack]

The RonCo might actually make sense for having mining chips in it, since it uses heat. However, since the heat it actually uses to cook pretty much exceeds the melting point of solder, let alone the safe operating point of any kind of precision silicon, I kinda doubt it'd be feasible. It doesn't matter how power-efficient the chip is, the only single-purpose device which actually benefits from having an integrated mining chip is a device whose purpose is to create or harness heat. There's really no use-case where a dedicated miner is not better than a tacked-on miner in some non-mining device. Building a miner into a refrigerator, for example, is pretty foolish because the purpose of the fridge is to stay cold. Adding heat to its environment, no matter how little, makes it less efficient - using electricity to add heat which it then uses electricity to manage, whatever bitcoins you just mined you paid for twice.

The approximately 100GH miner built into this little guy, how are you going to get paid for that? Will it be pointed dedicatedly at a 21e6 pool? How often will your dust be disbursed? Will 21e6 blocks cover those disbursements for free, since they'll probably be about the same value as the fee any other pool would require to process that transaction? What about the micro message transactions you send out? Will 21e6 blocks confirm those transactions as well, or are they going to float in the nether until some generous pool decides to toss 'em in with some actual paying transactions? Saying there'll be a "constant stream of bitcoin to your computer" is either a lie or a very annoying process.

[RoadStress]

Finally they broke the ice!

[Rabinovitch]

Then buy and sell digital goods and services at the command line.

Fock all GUIs. True *nix way! Watch movies and surf Internet via command line!.. 

[letsplayagame]

$400 for an API, a couple apps, and 50-125GH of hashing @ 0.16gh/j ?

I am sure the price will gradually come down. Anything that increases usage and the potential for more decentralization sounds like a step in the right direction.

[mookid]

Interesting idea, but way too expensive. It maybe be justified if the hardware is harder to manufacture it.
I just can't fathom a future with bitcoin dedicated hardware, it seems overkill.

[Biodom]

Saying there'll be a "constant stream of bitcoin to your computer" is either a lie or a very annoying process.

that's true...it is probably a redirect or something.
well, the way I see it...they put out a toy for $400 (1/5 of antminer s7). Some kids would rather pay $400 than $2000 PLUS you get some goodies in addition to mining.
they are also saying that the chip could be added pretty much anywhere...this I certainly don't see (for example,  iphones, etc.) since there is not much power there.

[msokk]

Just wanted to say that this things main purpose is not mining.

See https://21.co/faq/#making-a-profit and https://21.co/faq/#making-a-profit-part2

"If you do want to pursue the commodity business of mining-to-sell-for-dollars, you can certainly try to use the 21 Bitcoin Computer for that purpose as it does have a highly energy efficient chip— but that is not the intended use."

This more like a payment system for APIs and IoT devices, where amounts for service/work are tiny and mucking around with credit cards, payments gateways and handling subscriptions is too tedious. In other words, machine-to-machine payments.

They definitely need to improve their copywriting, but on the other hand I can see that people are locked into bitcoin + hardware == mining mindset and thats hard to change.

[alh]

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. 

[alh]

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.

[QuintLeo]

I don't see this "first product" being of intrest to many folks. WAY too low on performance, WAY too espen$ive, even for a "development tool" it's bloody overpriced.

 I've got to wonder what the REAL "intended use" for this thing is, the comments 21 has made on it so far make exactly ZERO sense to me.
 Technology demonstrator perhaps?

[Xialla]

$400 for an API, a couple apps, and 50-125GH of hashing @ 0.16gh/j ?

yes exactly, this is what it is. but..reason why they will sold something is this statement: "Buy digital goods with the constant stream of bitcoin mined by a 21 Bitcoin Chip"

it sounds so cool, imagine..you will order some small box and it will comes with wallet, node (you are helping network, wow) and MINER. and all this with geeky feeling of command line for 400USD. this device is not for bitcoiners but for wannabe geeks and kids. I really can't consider it as serious product.

[mavericklm]

Just bring out an 5th miner! simple

[notlist3d]

I was looking at could not find it.  What NM chip is this?   

Was curious with it showing more efficient then S7.  Would really like to know more about the chip itself.

[HyperMega]

Analyzing the pictures on the 21 inc website, the die size should be about 58 mm².

With 50...125 GH/s it is probably an 28nm ASIC. With 0.16 J/GH most likely a full custom design.

[torepia]

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.

How is your self-driven car going to pay for it self, when going through the car wash? Paying parking?
How are people going to pay your self driven uber car(taxi)?

The possibilities are endless!

http://www.nerdgraph.com/rise-internet-things/
<3 IoT

[sidehack]

Assuming 0.16 is bottom-clock efficiency, that puts it at about 10% better than BM1385. Not really revolutionary by comparison.

[Guy Corem]

Assuming 0.16 is bottom-clock efficiency, that puts it at about 10% better than BM1385. Not really revolutionary by comparison.

+1

21 1st gen was TSMC 40nm
21 2nd gen was Intel 22nm, power numbers of about 0.57 J/GH at nominal working point.
21 3rd gen was another Intel 22nm, they aimed for 0.22 J/GH according to their investors materials (taped out 24/8 2014, silicon was expected in November 2014)

I believe this is the 3rd gen. It's very bad number for a Intel 22nn, which is FinFET process.

A quote I liked from their presentation: "Approaching Moore's law: best efficiency is likely ~0.15 W/GH/s @ 14nm"

So funny.

I believe that they're working on TSMC 16nm, or Intel 14nm 4th gen.

They're not doing custom design, taking a standard cell brute force approach.

Look at the "ASIC Design Engineer" job description here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150821050459/https://21.co/#jobs

Pure waste of funds, IMHO.

[sidehack]

I kinda figured the same, that it was a <28nm process and not a full-custom design.

A lot of what these guys want to do seems like a bad idea to me. I'm all for wider adoption and bitcoin promotion and such, but the idea of adding mining chips into non-miner devices is foolish. Just like with trying to deploy a farm full of stick miners, the support-component overhead per hash makes it not cost-effective.
We're already having fights over how to expand the block size to accomodate existing actual financial transactions in the chain (you know, the financial transaction recordbook), and we're approaching a halving wherein block rewards decrease, putting more emphasis on transaction fees as a source of mining revenue. So why do we want to promote a mass deployment of services based around spamming the blockchain with (likely zero-fee) dust transactions, either from the "constant stream of bitcoins" coming from your baby miner or microtransactions as a means of messaging? My hatred for IoT in general aside, I'm sure I'm not the only one considering how little sense it makes to use a public financial ledger (with finite resources), the cost of maintenance of which is supposed to be compensated by its users, as a free SMS service.

Seriously, 21. You want to spam a blockchain with tiny free transactions, go make your own and stop messing with ours.

Having a console from which you can send and receive coins in payment for goods and services, that's a great idea. Except it's been done already, for free.

[RichBC]

It also smacks of a "Oh dear this chip is not that good, how are we going to present it?" At which point the marketing department got out the smoke & mirrors and came up a collection of stuff to wrap round it. 

Rich

[alh]

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.

How is your self-driven car going to pay for it self, when going through the car wash? Paying parking?
How are people going to pay your self driven uber car(taxi)?

The possibilities are endless!

http://www.nerdgraph.com/rise-internet-things/
<3 IoT

So do the JetCars arrive at the same time as the switchover to connected cars? The graphic referenced above is way cool and really impressive. Including the item where the IoT universe is worth $7.1 Trillion, which is supposed to be larger than the 2020 Russian GDP. I wonder how the Russian people feel about that? Looks to me like we need to get on the stick and start replacing cars at a furious pace if we want 90% of the cars on the road to be "Connected" in 2020. Maybe folks will just be so dazzled by the possibilities they'll run right out and replace their car. I am sure the.

The costs are staggering and completely out of line with reality. Maybe this can become part of the 2016 Presidential election discussion, after of course we dispense with Planned Parenthood and reducing taxes on the wealthy.   

[alh]

I also found the "WiFi connected Garbage Cans" to be truly hilarious. In my house, the garbage goes out when it stinks too much, or it's pickup day. I would love to see what a "WiFi can will cost" and how it changes the need for the trash hauler to drive down the street on Monday morning. I am absolutely not interested in doing Tech Support at my house for any new Internet connected Gadgets. If you aren't married, this may work great for you. My wife will have nothing to do with it.

[sidehack]

And then there's the consideration that anything operating on a wireless network, especially something as "plug and play" simple as most knuckledraggers are going to need, will probably be incredibly hackable.

[HyperMega]

Assuming 0.16 is bottom-clock efficiency, that puts it at about 10% better than BM1385. Not really revolutionary by comparison.

+1

21 1st gen was TSMC 40nm
21 2nd gen was Intel 22nm, power numbers of about 0.57 J/GH at nominal working point.
21 3rd gen was another Intel 22nm, they aimed for 0.22 J/GH according to their investors materials (taped out 24/8 2014, silicon was expected in November 2014)

I believe this is the 3rd gen. It's very bad number for a Intel 22nn, which is FinFET process.

A quote I liked from their presentation: "Approaching Moore's law: best efficiency is likely ~0.15 W/GH/s @ 14nm"

So funny.

I believe that they're working on TSMC 16nm, or Intel 14nm 4th gen.

They're not doing custom design, taking a standard cell brute force approach.

Look at the "ASIC Design Engineer" job description here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150821050459/https://21.co/#jobs

Pure waste of funds, IMHO.

As usual, you are very well informed, Guy!  

To be fair, with 0.16 J/GH this would be the most efficient chip in the wild so far.
The 0.6V BM1385 value is just quadratic extrapolations of the 0.66V value. Try it, it fits perfectly. IMHO too perfect for a measured value.

Anyway, 21 really screwed it up with the GH/mm2 value. In best case they have here about 2 GH/mm2 (for sure not with 0.16 J/GH). This is a good GH/mm2 value for 28nm, but for 22nm it should be 3 ... 4 GH/mm2. Otherwise this chip will be simply too expensive in production to be competitive for standard miners.

[Sine(X)]

It's a bluff, seriously.. 400$ for such device 
Chinese will do it for 50$ - why the heck?

[alh]

.......

As usual, you are very well informed, Guy!  

To be fair, with 0.16 J/GH this would be the most efficient chip in the wild so far.
The 0.6V BM1384 value is just quadratic extrapolations of the 0.66V value. Try it, it fits perfectly. IMHO too perfect for a measured value.

Anyway, 21 really screwed it up with the GH/mm2 value. In best case they have here about 2 GH/mm2 (for sure not with 0.16 J/GH). This is a good GH/mm2 value for 28nm, but for 22nm it should be 3 ... 4 GH/mm2. Otherwise this chip will be simply too expensive in production to be competitive for standard miners.

You have got to stop thinking about conventional economics here. The IoT bandwagon is impervious to conventional economic considerations. After all, folks are going to just be so happy to pay an extra $25 for their light bulb, it doesn't matter if the ASIC price is a little high. The fact that it's going to be part of the IoT relieves it from those pesky metrics.

If it's connected to the Internet, it MUST be great!!! 

[Guy Corem]

.......

As usual, you are very well informed, Guy!  

To be fair, with 0.16 J/GH this would be the most efficient chip in the wild so far.
The 0.6V BM1384 value is just quadratic extrapolations of the 0.66V value. Try it, it fits perfectly. IMHO too perfect for a measured value.

Anyway, 21 really screwed it up with the GH/mm2 value. In best case they have here about 2 GH/mm2 (for sure not with 0.16 J/GH). This is a good GH/mm2 value for 28nm, but for 22nm it should be 3 ... 4 GH/mm2. Otherwise this chip will be simply too expensive in production to be competitive for standard miners.

You have got to stop thinking about conventional economics here. The IoT bandwagon is impervious to conventional economic considerations. After all, folks are going to just be so happy to pay an extra $25 for their light bulb, it doesn't matter if the ASIC price is a little high. The fact that it's going to be part of the IoT relieves it from those pesky metrics.

If it's connected to the Internet, it MUST be great!!! 

Isn't Raspberry PI 2 + Sidehack's 1384 dongle is essentially the same for quarter of the price ?

[dimke_yu]

I think that you are correct... I am waiting for Antminer R1 that will be useful device unlike this overpriced piece of hardware...

[HyperMega]

.......

You have got to stop thinking about conventional economics here. The IoT bandwagon is impervious to conventional economic considerations. After all, folks are going to just be so happy to pay an extra $25 for their light bulb, it doesn't matter if the ASIC price is a little high. The fact that it's going to be part of the IoT relieves it from those pesky metrics.

If it's connected to the Internet, it MUST be great!!! 

I was not thinking about conventional economics with repect to this tiny "bitcoin computer", I don't have enough fantasy therefor.

I was just thinking about if one could build a competitive real miner based on the 21 inc chip. And I guess the one would have a Capex issue compared to e.g. miners based on BM1385 chips.

[notlist3d]

I think that you are correct... I am waiting for Antminer R1 that will be useful device unlike this overpriced piece of hardware...

I think R1 will be overpriced aswell.  Not to this point of almost crazy.  I almost think 21 want's a release without having to make many products.... so release high price and only sell a few.

With R1 it is still nothing revolutionary.  It should not be much higher then the usb micro tplink and one of sidehacks sticks.   But we will see they could surprise me and release at good price.

[bitsolutions]

Isn't Raspberry PI 2 + Sidehack's 1384 dongle is essentially the same for quarter of the price ?

I think the U3 would be about the cheapest in terms of $/GH but Sidehack's is more efficient.

[TheRealSteve]

Isn't Raspberry PI 2 + Sidehack's 1384 dongle is essentially the same for quarter of the price ?

If one were to add the software and backend ecosystem (however that pans out, exactly), yes.

Not sure if this is the thread I've mentioned it in, but I can see what they're trying to do - and while $400 is steep, I think we all know there's plenty of people who want to try to be at the forefront of [whatever] where $400 for a business is a pretty low expense compared to rent, insurance, payroll, etc.  I know I could easily convince my boss to get one.

The mining aspect, though?  Even with all the reasons given by people who seem like they're trying to position themselves as 21, Inc. mouthpieces (I'll await the Reddit AMA / verified social media outlets for some official statements) I don't think it makes any sense, certainly not in the form it's in.  Not now, not next year (hello halving), and not a few years down the road.  If the issue really were about trying to get a few satoshi into people's hands to start things off with, begging for some on reddit, posting a silly picture with a QR code, hitting a faucet or partaking in a sig campaign (ew) would do the job without adding an expensive component that requires active cooling and bulks the device up (I guess VC money aplenty for warehousing and shipping) unnecessarily.

[Biodom]

few points:

1. this is not a miner, most and foremost upon further reading.
2. I detect some jealousy from the SPT. Yeah, 0.16 is not great. Looking forward to something better than 0.16 from you at a stable/stablish price, otherwise this is just academic.
3. Miners that are only mining, then selling their coin do not make a ecosystem with a balance of buys and sells, hence the relentless price decrease in the last 22 mo.
4. This computer MIGHT provide an impetus for the development of services, which for me as a bitcoin supporter would be a good thing.
5. Obviously, $400 price is a bit steep for individuals, but maybe OK for somebody. Of course, around $200 would be much better (See #6).
6. somebody posted that the sum of parts for it is ~$250. In order to encourage use, they should sell it at cost initially.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1186115.msg12494550#msg12494550

[calichomp]

.......

As usual, you are very well informed, Guy!  

To be fair, with 0.16 J/GH this would be the most efficient chip in the wild so far.
The 0.6V BM1384 value is just quadratic extrapolations of the 0.66V value. Try it, it fits perfectly. IMHO too perfect for a measured value.

Anyway, 21 really screwed it up with the GH/mm2 value. In best case they have here about 2 GH/mm2 (for sure not with 0.16 J/GH). This is a good GH/mm2 value for 28nm, but for 22nm it should be 3 ... 4 GH/mm2. Otherwise this chip will be simply too expensive in production to be competitive for standard miners.

You have got to stop thinking about conventional economics here. The IoT bandwagon is impervious to conventional economic considerations. After all, folks are going to just be so happy to pay an extra $25 for their light bulb, it doesn't matter if the ASIC price is a little high. The fact that it's going to be part of the IoT relieves it from those pesky metrics.

If it's connected to the Internet, it MUST be great!!!  

Isn't Raspberry PI 2 + Sidehack's 1384 dongle is essentially the same for quarter of the price ?

Observe: this is the type of product philosophy that is likely to put you in a position to have to fire-sale your company and dilute yourself off of your own cap table.

[-droid-]

It seems pretty spendy for what it is... but then again we dont even know its full capability regarding software and whatnot.

I sure hope the R1 is around $100

[alh]

Personally I am just happy to have Spondoolies "surface" again and resume communication. Clearly they didn't say the right words or prepare the right kind of PowerPoint slide to extract $116M from the VC guys in California. Probably not the worst thing that could happen to them (IMHO).

[Biodom]

Personally I am just happy to have Spondoolies "surface" again and resume communication. Clearly they didn't say the right words or prepare the right kind of PowerPoint slide to extract $116M from the VC guys in California.

me too, actually. i always felt that it was not good for anybody that they kind of disappear for a while. it remains to be seen if they will engage the retail again.

[notlist3d]

It seems pretty spendy for what it is... but then again we dont even know its full capability regarding software and whatnot.

I sure hope the R1 is around $100

Sidehacks Compac - 25
Tplink nano -30 (20 some places).

So I hope they are between the 50-75 mark.   There is nothing revolutionary with R1 just a travel router that mines.   So I hope closer to 50 mark. 

But likely they will have priced up some.   But not near the 400, then again I dont think R1 will get near speed of this 21 device.

[sidehack]

Personally I am just happy to have Spondoolies "surface" again and resume communication. Clearly they didn't say the right words or prepare the right kind of PowerPoint slide to extract $116M from the VC guys in California. Probably not the worst thing that could happen to them (IMHO).

It's probably a compliment to the way SPT does business that they didn't get buckets of the California VC money, if the California VC money are looking to sponsor stuff like what 21 is pushing. I may disagree with a lot of SPT's engineering decisions, but from a business standpoint at least the function of their product line isn't ridiculous, useless or both.

[Guy Corem]

Isn't Raspberry PI 2 + Sidehack's 1384 dongle is essentially the same for quarter of the price ?

If one were to add the software and backend ecosystem (however that pans out, exactly), yes.
...

Let's wait and see. For software and backend ecosystem to succeed, the client side should be open source, so ...

Read the last paragraph here:
https://www.zapchain.com/a/l/marketing-bitcoin-to-the-masses-selling-21-on-ignorance/GZqWqHBNoD

[brontosaurus]

In case of any doubt about 21's intentions, they, and their investors couldn't care less about whether or not this development boards sells 1 or a million units, the end game is to generate enough public interest for an IPO which will probably be priced at about $25 + billion (at least to the sheep that will doubtlessly buy shares in it).

They can claim they have sold 100,000 boards to developers. Who will know? They'll get plenty of hangers-on to publicly declare their support for the project and the idea of micropayments for digital services.

Once they get their hands on a couple of billion.....you can imagine what they might do.

[Biodom]

SPT resurfaces with a 110 TH SP-50 (only for some customers) machine...things are happening in bitcoin

[Meech]

Interesting things are coming but are they viable to the home miner?  Does this node come with free preinstalled spamware?
You know their investors only opted in on this venture if to only exploit their linked services they deem important in the road to Bitcoin's growth (I mean taking the ride on Bitcoin's success and profitablility).

[toptek]

Does this 0.16w/Gh mean they have a real miner in the works, if this one cost 400 you can bet any thing that actually mines bitcoins and is for bitcoin mining they make is gonna cost, is this real ? .

[toptek]

In case of any doubt about 21's intentions, they, and their investors couldn't care less about whether or not this development boards sells 1 or a million units, the end game is to generate enough public interest for an IPO which will probably be priced at about $25 + billion (at least to the sheep that will doubtlessly buy shares in it).

They can claim they have sold 100,000 boards to developers. Who will know? They'll get plenty of hangers-on to publicly declare their support for the project and the idea of micropayments for digital services.

Once they get their hands on a couple of billion.....you can imagine what they might do.

I can but i won't make it a list , will say KNC again maybe, lmao.or a honest type knc that sells to the public based in the US and the US needs more chip maker etc to drive down prices and set standard again like we use to a long time ago .That's not gonna happen either..

[lovenlifelarge]

OMG, I can't believe no one here has thought about this for 2 mins to think about this in a positive aspect & how its not a miner...

& its not an IOT device, Well not in a sense that i see but a paid for service..... ( I can already here u all saying?? What the??? )

Isn't everyone rushing to get a Silk road / Ebay / Paypal service up & running??

https://openbazaar.org/

Anyone???

Think about this.....

BTC Fullnode + wallet + space for apps, My guess would be an ebay style marketplace & escrow.

Think about loading the service across endless nodes & paying them a small amount to run (Hence the small miner)

So Us$400 is entry to setup a distributed ebay style service & the miner is payback for running the service...

This would get the service setup & running on lots of ip addresses saving them $$$$ on running the servers themselves, Leaving them just to run the backend & escrow service...

I'm pissed i didn't think of this first & seems i'm not the sharpest tool in the shed why no one else here thought of it before me??

[Guy Corem]

OMG, I can't believe no one here has thought about this for 2 mins to think about this in a positive aspect & how its not a miner...

& its not an IOT device, Well not in a sense that i see but a paid for service..... ( I can already here u all saying?? What the??? )

Isn't everyone rushing to get a Silk road / Ebay / Paypal service up & running??

https://openbazaar.org/

Anyone???

Think about this.....

BTC Fullnode + wallet + space for apps, My guess would be an ebay style marketplace & escrow.

Think about loading the service across endless nodes & paying them a small amount to run (Hence the small miner)

So Us$400 is entry to setup a distributed ebay style service & the miner is payback for running the service...

This would get the service setup & running on lots of ip addresses saving them $$$$ on running the servers themselves, Leaving them just to run the backend & escrow service...

I'm pissed i didn't think of this first & seems i'm not the sharpest tool in the shed why no one else here thought of it before me??

I don't know if it's sarcasm or not.
Anyway: https://bitseed.org/product/core/ + Sidehack USB miner.

[lovenlifelarge]

I wasn't joking... Does anyone else not think this could be a possibility?

U dont get Us$100,000,000 in VC for nothing... How much is ebay worth??

$700,000,000, This could be an ebay killer....

[alh]

I wasn't joking... Does anyone else not think this could be a possibility?

U dont get Us$100,000,000 in VC for nothing... How much is ebay worth??

$700,000,000, This could be an ebay killer....

Did you mean Ebay or PayPal? I don't think either one has anything to fear from 21Inc. As long as 21Inc tries to march towards an IPO, the VC guys will be happy. The VC guys will get their money back if/when the company tries to go public, The rest is all a sideshow. Nothing says that the VC guys are perfect. They lose money all the time, but as long as they strike it big often enough, they are good. I am just happy it's the VC guys investing money instead of "pre-order customers".

It will be so interesting to revisit this 2-3 years.

[Searing]

well my view is it is just to keep the millions given to them by newbie IPO money happy ..ie hey we have a product

a continuation of the BFL scam only they provided equipment (admittedly 400 buck pi but still)

so it is imho just a way to wave the flag and show they are doing something and get more IPO $$$


if this 400 buck pi device is for devs they are out of their mind no dev will get this when he can do his own thing on a pi or a laptop

if they were REALLY serious about this they would have released an open source developer package with some hopeful guidelines on
what they wanted to accomplish in ecommerce and the rest

the devs would  go cool ..grab the package and off they would go on their own laptop or pi to try and move their vision...that would have
gotten the most devs and the most hype imho

this is just a very lame attempt to 'please' the newbie IPO folk they are doing something .it is destined to failure imho

[Biodom]

well my view is it is just to keep the millions given to them by newbie IPO money happy ..ie hey we have a product

a continuation of the BFL scam only they provided equipment (admittedly 400 buck pi but still)

so it is imho just a way to wave the flag and show they are doing something and get more IPO $$$


if this 400 buck pi device is for devs they are out of their mind no dev will get this when he can do his own thing on a pi or a laptop

if they were REALLY serious about this they would have released an open source developer package with some hopeful guidelines on
what they wanted to accomplish in ecommerce and the rest

the devs would  go cool ..grab the package and off they would go on their own laptop or pi to try and move their vision...that would have
gotten the most devs and the most hype imho

this is just a very lame attempt to 'please' the newbie IPO folk they are doing something .it is destined to failure imho

apparently, it is selling quite well

[alh]

.....

apparently, it is selling quite well

I am curios about your insight as to sales. I understand it only to be a pre-order at this time for delivery after November 16th. How could any of us, except perhaps Amazon, know anything about sales?

[Biodom]

.....

apparently, it is selling quite well

I am curios about your insight as to sales. I understand it only to be a pre-order at this time for delivery after November 16th. How could any of us, except perhaps Amazon, know anything about sales?

i read about it on zeroblock, will try to find a quote...nevermind, i remembered more accurately-someone mentioned it on btctalk and i just checked amazon-it is the best seller in Servers
http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Computers-Accessories-Computer-Servers/zgbs/pc/11036071/ref=zg_bs_nav_pc_1_pc
I have no insider knowledge whatsoever, sorry.

[alh]

OK, so it was the little graphic attached to the Amazon listing that means to you "Selling quite well".  I hadn't noticed that before. I wonder what criteria Amazon uses, though that's probably a bit off-topic.

[Biodom]

OK, so it was the little graphic attached to the Amazon listing that means to you "Selling quite well".  I hadn't noticed that before. I wonder what criteria Amazon uses, though that's probably a bit off-topic.

well, the fact that it is #1 in servers tells me that it is "selling quite well" (better than antminer S5, for example, which is #3).

[lovenlifelarge]

I wasn't joking... Does anyone else not think this could be a possibility?

U dont get Us$100,000,000 in VC for nothing... How much is ebay worth??

$700,000,000, This could be an ebay killer....

Did you mean Ebay or PayPal? I don't think either one has anything to fear from 21Inc. As long as 21Inc tries to march towards an IPO, the VC guys will be happy. The VC guys will get their money back if/when the company tries to go public, The rest is all a sideshow. Nothing says that the VC guys are perfect. They lose money all the time, but as long as they strike it big often enough, they are good. I am just happy it's the VC guys investing money instead of "pre-order customers".

It will be so interesting to revisit this 2-3 years.

I meant both... Ebay & Paypal...

Ebay like for the marketplace & Paypal like for bitcoin payment & escrow..

I think a few of u under estimate these guys cause they are using VC money...

This could be the big ticket item that bitcoin has been waiting for, I think they are holding back details cause they don't really need to release them...

I hope i wont be eating my words later on but i think this is going to be big & a lot bigger than anyone on here is giving credit too..

I just don't think it will focus on mining like a lot of u do.. which in my mind is little too one track minded for bitcoin to ever really succeed

[notlist3d]

OK, so it was the little graphic attached to the Amazon listing that means to you "Selling quite well".  I hadn't noticed that before. I wonder what criteria Amazon uses, though that's probably a bit off-topic.

well, the fact that it is #1 in servers tells me that it is "selling quite well" (better than antminer S5, for example, which is #3).

Who buy's miners from amazon though?   That is one of the last places people buy S5's, S3's.  Ebay and this forum are king. 

I am surprised it is in server category.  It makes me wonder what its calculation is to get number one.  Did it sell more in X day's.   How do they have it weigheted.

But either way selling better then I thought.

[QuintLeo]

OK, so it was the little graphic attached to the Amazon listing that means to you "Selling quite well".  I hadn't noticed that before. I wonder what criteria Amazon uses, though that's probably a bit off-topic.

well, the fact that it is #1 in servers tells me that it is "selling quite well" (better than antminer S5, for example, which is #3).

 Amazon hasn't had more than 12 S5's LISTED at any point in the last 5 months.

 Not real impressive for sales to me.

[worhiper_-_]

Has anyone here pre-ordered this?

[QuintLeo]

Did you mean Ebay or PayPal?

I meant both... Ebay & Paypal...

 I'm pretty sure that Ebay sold Paypal back off fairly recently, due to massive underperformance.

 I dunno why anyone uses Paypal, it's NOT trustable and widely known to be both a ripoff company and to have a 'corporate plan' that FORCES it to rip folks off to actually make a profit.

[DiamondCardz]

Is this thing basically a Raspberry Pi? $400 seems to be a massive markup...it's a nice idea but it really seems too expensive for what you get. It could definitely do without the inefficient mining chip too.

[worhiper_-_]

Is this thing basically a Raspberry Pi? $400 seems to be a massive markup...it's a nice idea but it really seems too expensive for what you get. It could definitely do without the inefficient mining chip too.

To be fair, we haven't gotten to see the software and the network 21 talks about. Maybe it'll provide owners with access to exclusive features, or maybe not. No way to be certain yet.

[Biodom]

Is this thing basically a Raspberry Pi? $400 seems to be a massive markup...it's a nice idea but it really seems too expensive for what you get. It could definitely do without the inefficient mining chip too.

LOL
somebody did the parts analysis and came up with ~$250 in parts (does raspberry pi have 128 gig of flash memory?)
In my opinion, they should have posted it for $250 initially, but it is not a large markup comparing with an iphone, for example (parts ~$200, cost $650)

[TheRealSteve]

You mean this?

1. Raspberry Pi 2: $35
2. 128 GB memory card: $75.95
3. Raspberry Pi B+ Power Supply: $6.99
4. Raspberry Pi WIFI Adapter: $8.56
5. Raspberry Pi Cooling Fan: $7.99
6. USB to TTL Serial Cable: $9.95
7. Heat sink: $10
8. 125 gh/s USB miner: $93

SD card selection is way too expensive (even when ignoring the potential fakes), there's a heat sink and cooling fan that's unnecessary (already included in the 2x AntMiner U3 selection; which is an iffy choice in itself, but alright), the wifi adapter is generally unnecessary (odds are you'd place this near some manner of network switch/router - throw in a cheap network cable instead, might even be able to get away with USB), the FTDI cable.. why is that even in there? You're supposed to play with the software, not reconfigure the innards of the rpi2 ..and a few bucks could be shaved off the power supply as well - might as well make that a generic USB power wart instead of being stuck with a 'fixed' microUSB output.  The rpi2 is reasonably-priced and similar-level alternatives tend to be priced around $35 as well.  Not sure that level would actually be needed, but there's better areas to shave cost at least.

You still wouldn't have the software/whatever they're providing, but in terms of hardware, you can certainly do cheaper.

[lovenlifelarge]

Did you mean Ebay or PayPal?

I meant both... Ebay & Paypal...

 I'm pretty sure that Ebay sold Paypal back off fairly recently, due to massive underperformance.

 I dunno why anyone uses Paypal, it's NOT trustable and widely known to be both a ripoff company and to have a 'corporate plan' that FORCES it to rip folks off to actually make a profit.

Ebay & paypal are owned by the same group of people, What happen just recently was that the two companies had been operating as 1 entity & one of the major shareholders figured that the 2 companies run separately would be worth more money (Cause he want to sell his paypal stake)

So they stopped the companies working as 1 splitting them into 2 making the value of ebay about 700,000,000 & ebay about 600,000,000...

I'm not sure if the major shareholder who caused this to happen has sold his shares or not yet??

[DiamondCardz]

You mean this?

2. 128 GB memory card: $75.95

If we're talking a normal SD card, you can get 128GB easily for under $40. They're either making frivolous purchases for their hardware, or overpricing their parts. I can't say that this computer is a good deal if the hardware costs are so high for what you get.

[worhiper_-_]

You mean this?

2. 128 GB memory card: $75.95

If we're talking a normal SD card, you can get 128GB easily for under $40. They're either making frivolous purchases for their hardware, or overpricing their parts. I can't say that this computer is a good deal if the hardware costs are so high for what you get.

They're just greedy over profit margins or overprice their product. The hardware is not worth 400$ in any shape or form, but we haven't gotten to know what the overall service and network is going to be capable of. With all the mystery that 21 leave unexplained I wouldn't expect their device to be anything more than a cash grab.