It seems that somebody has finally made “the ultimate space heater” that can mine Bitcoin while keeping you warm. Enter Heatbit – a Bitmain Antminer S9 ASIC miner turned into a space heater with a great looking design, silent operation and mining Bitcoin while keeping you warm during the cold months. Do note that Heatbit is not being advertised as a Bitcoin miner that can keep you warm, it is just the opposite – a space heater that mines Bitcoin while keeping you warm. So, in essence it is a device to keep you warm when you need it, generating some Bitcoin while doing so to help you pay for the electricity it uses for instance, and not a Bitcoin miner that should always be kept on.
As for the claim that Heatbit is “The first heater that mines bitcoin” we cannot fully agree as there have been numerous such products over the years, though none of them apparently did get enough popularity. It is for sure not going to be the last one either on this market and lately we are seeing a lot of users also modifying the good old AntMiner S9 ASIC miners to be used as home heaters. Then there are also some mining companies that tried to advertise their ASIC miners as home heaters as well.
Heatbit was apparently conceived during the pandemic thanks to an Antminer S9 device being used by the company’s founder and apparently it has one of these legendary ASIC miners inside, but reworked to be silent and safe. Consuming up to 1.4 kW of power and able to deliver up to 14 TH/s of Bitcoin mining hashrate while operating at full capacity and being able to heat 170 square feet (about 16 square meters) according to the official specs. At full power the Heatbit should be able to operate with a noise level of below 42 dB, so it should be pretty silent, especially if you compare it to the very noisy stock AntMiner S9 ASIC that goes 80 dB or more when working.
Specifications of the Heatbit:
– Hashing power: Up to 14 TH/s
– Power Usage: 1.4 kW,
– Power: Warms up to 170 square feet, quietly
– Noise: <42 dBA - Size: 870x319x259 mm / 34,3x12,6x10,2 in - Weight: 31 lbs / 14 kg
The Heatbit is available in three different models, While and Orange for $1149 USD and a Wooden one available for $1199 USD and the device should be shipping already. You need to connect the device to a WiFi network and power in order for it to function and you can use the provided App to control and monitor how the space heater operates as well as to manage what Bitcoin it has mined so far while working. It all seems to be designed so that it can be really easy for the user as should be for a consumer product designed for more general users and not a miner targeted at more advanced users. If you are a traditional crypto miner you will most likely pass on that one as it comes quite expensive for what a S9 delivers in terms of performance and profitability though.
The App is available for both iOS and Android devices and it allows you to configure and control one or more Heatbit devices in your home or office or wherever you place them. It gives you an easy overview of how the heater is currently performing in terms of hashrate and you get to control the heat output you need between three settings – 50%, 75% and 100%. Do note that using lower heating percentage will also result in lower hashrate for the mining. The App also has a built-in wallet that allows you to manage the Bitcoin you have mined so far. There is a simple Demo mode available, so that you can check out the features of the App by downloading it even without having a Hotbit device like we did.
What we are kind of missing and would like to see as a feature is the ability to monitor the ambient heat in the location where you have the miner and a user controllable setting for a desired temperature to be kept in that room. A scheduler for when to automatically turn on and off the heater would also be quite nice to have. That is as far as heating goes, and having more stats on the Bitcoin mining part would also be nice. Things like how much it has mined so far in today, this week, this month and total etc. We know that the Hotbit is a heater first and Bitcoin miner then, and that its main goal is not to have it running at maximum level 24/7 like you would normally do with a miner, but still more stats is always nice.
