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Qarnot Unveils a Cryptocurrency Heater For Your Home (techcrunch.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the fully-optimized dept.

Qarnot, the French startup known for using Ryzen Pro processors to heat homes and offices for free, is unveiling a new computing heater specifically made for cryptocurrency mining. "The QC1 is a heater for your home that features a passive computer inside," reports TechCrunch. "And this computer is optimized for mining." From the report: The QC1 features two AMD GPUs (Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX580 with 8GB of VRAM) and is designed to mine Ethers by default. You can set it up in a few minutes by plugging an Ethernet cable and putting your Ethereum wallet address in the mobile app. You'll then gradually receive ethers on this address -- Qarnot doesn't receive any coin, you keep 100 percent of your cryptocurrencies. If you believe Litecoin or another cryptocurrency is the future, you can also access the computer and mine another cryptocurrency. It's a Linux server and you can access it directly. If your home is cold and you desperately need to turn on the heaters, the QC1 is going to turn on the two GPUs and mine at a 60 MH/s speed. There are also traditional heating conductors in case those two GPUs are not enough. Qarnot heaters don't have any hard drive and rely on passive heating. You won't hear any fan buzzing in the background. You can order the QC1 for $3,600 starting today -- you can also pay in bitcoins. The company hopes to sell hundreds of QC1 in the next year.

38 of 65 comments (clear)

  1. What about Summer? by hAckz0r · · Score: 2
    There is no longer any cool-hard-cash to roll around in to take the summer heat away...

    Well maybe you could use the GPU heat to drive a Sterling Engine, to turn a compressor, for some of that old fashion AC?

    1. Re:What about Summer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      There is no longer any cool-hard-cash to roll around in to take the summer heat away...

      Well maybe you could use the GPU heat to drive a Sterling Engine, to turn a compressor, for some of that old fashion AC?

      I'm thinking generating supplemental heat for a water heater might be more useful in the summer.

    2. Re:What about Summer? by RhettLivingston · · Score: 2

      Propane is used to power refrigerators and A/Cs in RVs using absorption refrigeration techniques (the old ammonia cycle concept but with safer fluids today). Since any heat source would work, I would think these systems could be adapted to utilize heat from GPUs. The fluid could be circulated straight through the heat sink.

    3. Re:What about Summer? by EETech1 · · Score: 1

      Put it in the garage, and plug it in

    4. Re:What about Summer? by Type44Q · · Score: 1

      Well maybe you could use the GPU heat to drive a Sterling Engine, to turn a compressor, for some of that old fashion AC?

      Not until you can stand on a sailboat and get it to move by blowing at the sail...

  2. Trifecta! by sehlat · · Score: 1

    Warm your wallet, your heart, and your house, all at the same time!

    1. Re:Trifecta! by Deep+Esophagus · · Score: 1

      After spending $3600 on the unit, how long will it take at average mining rates to recover your investment, and after that does it mine enough per hour to pay for the electricity used to run the unit?

      I mean, I'd gladly sell a device that paid out a penny a day for only $3600. The customers would break even in only 986 years, and after that it's pure profit!

      Yup, P.T. Barnum greatly underestimated the sucker proliferation rate.

    2. Re:Trifecta! by sehlat · · Score: 1

      I gather from your response that you took what I said seriously. OK.

    3. Re:Trifecta! by war4peace · · Score: 1

      Whattomine.com says your profit is 2.66 bucks a day using 2x 580 cards with 60 MH/s mining speed. You would recover your investment after... 1354 days of NON STOP mining, provided the cards hold for that long, which I highly, highly doubt.

      http://whattomine.com/coins?ut...

      This solution is one of the most retarded I've heard of.

      --
      ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
    4. Re: Trifecta! by Wycliffe · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The point of something like this is that if you need to heat your house anyways then the electricity is basically free and you can reach break even much sooner.

    5. Re: Trifecta! by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      The point of something like this is that if you need to heat your house anyways then the electricity is basically free

      This is only true if you use electricity for heating, which is generally a dumb thing to do.

      If fuel is available, it is better to use it directly to generate heat, rather than using it to generate electricity, and then using the electricity for heat. Or even better, to co-generate both heat and electricity.

      If fuel is not available, and you really have to use electricity for heat, it is most likely going to be better to run a heat pump rather than a GPU.

      But this seems to be targeted toward dumb people anyway. Who else is going to pay $3600 for two $500 GPUs?

    6. Re: Trifecta! by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      Dumb perhaps, but common practice in apartments - they often don't even have a gas pipe. You need to either deal with the hassle of propane tanks, and lose half the output to ventilation to get rid of the carbon dioxide they produce, or just use an electric heater.

    7. Re: Trifecta! by war4peace · · Score: 1

      I am currently mining with my PC and my house is heated by it. So, as someone who already does it, I can tell you that it's awesome during winter, and then it sucks hard, because you need to cool your house more than when not mining, obviously.
      So unless you live somewhere in Iceland or up in the mountainside, you will only heat your house half the year, effectively doubling your ROI time.
      Shortly put: those 3600 dollars? Most of them you'll never make back.

      --
      ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
    8. Re:Trifecta! by j-beda · · Score: 1

      Whattomine.com says your profit is 2.66 bucks a day using 2x 580 cards with 60 MH/s mining speed. You would recover your investment after... 1354 days of NON STOP mining, provided the cards hold for that long, which I highly, highly doubt.

      http://whattomine.com/coins?ut...

      This solution is one of the most retarded I've heard of.

      If you are already heating with electricity, your "cost of electricity" is effective $0.00/kwh rather than $0.10/kwh since you are paying for the energy whether you run this rig or not.

      Using ht

    9. Re:Trifecta! by war4peace · · Score: 1

      I highly doubt a pair of consumer-grade AMD RX580s gaming cards would last mining ETH for over 3 years.

      --
      ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
    10. Re:Trifecta! by j-beda · · Score: 1

      I highly doubt a pair of consumer-grade AMD RX580s gaming cards would last mining ETH for over 3 years.

      There is that.

      I was just looking at a client's office where a system doing file backup duties is located in a space that is heated by electricity. For the most part, the system is idle as the scheduled backup tasks are not running constantly and don't actually use a lot of computing power. We have considered setting up something like mining software or Folding@home to do something useful with some of the energy being used to heat the space. Not running the software in the summer would be a good idea. One should be able to run such software in a way that doesn't dramatically decrease the useful lifespan of the hardware.

    11. Re:Trifecta! by Deep+Esophagus · · Score: 1

      I gather from your response that you took what I said seriously. OK.

      Ah, no. Sorry, I was using your sarcastic response as a hook upon which to hang my larger gripe at the whole concept of cryptocurrency mining. Criminy, your remark made my sarcasm detector go off the scale!

  3. Useful Mining by mentil · · Score: 1

    The most interesting use of processing power for mining a cryptocoin I've heard of is Render Token. Instead of trying to find an arbitrary hash, the processor renders 3d graphics as part of a cloud-computing job. Thus, useful work is accomplished. However, I'm unsure why the cryptocoin angle is necessary when it could be given a standard monetary reward. Presumably each frame rendered has to be verified by another worker to ensure you didn't cheat in the rendering, and the contents of the scene/render wouldn't be secret, so it won't be anything particularly sensitive.

    --
    Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
  4. Efficient by burtosis · · Score: 4, Informative

    For the minority of people who use electricity to warm thier houses in cold climates it may make sense as it's just run through a fancy resistor. Than again any mining rig would do the same, so I'm not sure what the real benefit is other than maybe aesthetics.

    1. Re:Efficient by ZorinLynx · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Only relatively warm climates use electricity for heating because the cost is just too high once you have to run the heat more than a few weeks out of the year.

      That said, if you're going to mine anyway, might as well do it in the winter as the heat produced will be useful instead of wasted. It's definitely not "free heat" if you normally use gas or oil to heat your home, though.

    2. Re:Efficient by Hentes · · Score: 2

      For that price it's cheaper to set up a heat pump.

    3. Re:Efficient by burtosis · · Score: 2

      Untrue. An example is winnipeg. They are a cold climate with abundant hydroelectric power, so much so electricity is refered to as "hydro". Due to the way they strictly plan city limits, and due to many older houses, many have no natural gas. They have been using electricity for heating since forever. Source - sold a house in Winnipeg with electric heat last December.

    4. Re:Efficient by burtosis · · Score: 1

      That's a valid reason for people who aren't into gambling with thier furnace. It's also why that rig looks overpriced to me, they probably created a business model around selling overpriced hardware and support.

  5. What's the power consumption by guruevi · · Score: 3, Interesting

    To know whether "$3600 + electric bill + BitCoin-conversion" (assuming this is only good for the winter months of 1, maybe 2 years) is better than just heating your house with gas or a heat pump we need to know what the consumption and bitcoin generation speeds.

    My heating costs are about 3c/kWh and BTC is not worth my investment of time and money, but I know most people use gas or electric at much higher rates. Unless this optimized the rate of production, not sure if it's worth.

    --
    Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    1. Re:What's the power consumption by burtosis · · Score: 1

      Fuel oil is far more expensive than natural gas nowadays. Fuel oil requires deliveries, a large tank, and is messy. A substantial number of people have just insulated better and used electric instead.

    2. Re:What's the power consumption by burtosis · · Score: 1

      Forgot ^ where natural gas isn't available.

    3. Re:What's the power consumption by baker_tony · · Score: 1

      Compare the efficiency of resistive heat to a heat pump.
      Heat pump is several times more efficient at producing the same amount of heat.
      So yep, most of the electricity will be converted to heat, but in a very inefficient manor.

    4. Re: What's the power consumption by guruevi · · Score: 1

      Brand new heat pumps these days are efficient down to 20-something Fahrenheit. Mine is 15 years old and the cutoff where it will no longer provide sufficient heat (with a modern smart thermostat controlling the secondary gas stage) seems to be about 30F but then again my house is currently very badly insulated (R13 in the attic).

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    5. Re:What's the power consumption by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Of course if you really are talking actual efficiency than co-generation engines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... are the way to go. The most logical version in the low density domestic situation, a sewerage digester https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/..., basically a large tank where you kitchen and toilet waste initially go, to start breaking down prior to going to sewer, specifically to produce methane, which you then burn in a gas turbine engine generator http://newenergyandfuel.com/ht.... Not quite the best design because you want to use the exhaust gases to heat water or your house and the radiate heat from the unit in say a clothes drying room and of course the electricity to go to your house battery (better balancing of energy needs between needing heat and electricity, of course if you have a heated pool, you can see real advantage in a domestic methane co-generation plant). You could use the energy to power bullshit crypto generation but in reality it would probably be smarter to sell the electricity you generate from mud monkey poo (earth primate faeces) back to the grid. How much electricity, how big is your family (a subtle dig at Americans there) and how big is your methane generation tank, and if you cogeneration plant is sized accordingly, will drive how much money you save or make, depending upon electricity and hot water usage.

      In fact those kind of installations should already be mass produced for default installation but mud monkeys are such a backward short sighted species often not able to see much beyond their own genitals (methane is ten times worse than carbon dioxide but who cares, I don't own any underwaterfront property, I wonder if they will develop house snorkels first, surf zone, probably not).

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    6. Re:What's the power consumption by CSMoran · · Score: 1

      If you're heating your home you'd be paying that electric bill anyway. Whatever work is done in the meantime, ultimately the machine will convert pretty much 100% of the input watts into watts output as heat.

      s/watts/joules/g

      --
      Every end has half a stick.
  6. Passive? by zmooc · · Score: 2

    I don't see how a passive computer could heat your house. I'd suggest using an active computer.

    --
    0x or or snor perron?!
  7. Utillity stocks by istartedi · · Score: 1

    Many utility stocks yield in the 4 to 5% range. At 5% yield, a $4000 purchase of shares yields $200/yr. Depending on your rates, this might be close to paying for what a cheap $100 resistance heater would consume, or it might not. YMMV depending on how often you use such things.

    Of course stocks aren't risk-free; but you don't even have to chose your local utility--you can evaluate your appetite for risk in the market. I think in most cases, a good utility stock is far more likely to hold value than this thing. Even a utility with aging plants isn't going to become obsolete anywhere near as fast as a mining rig.

    If you don't like finance, you can always put the money towards a solar install if you're setup for that to work. The beauty of the financial approach is that you can do it anywhere--even in an apartment.

    Long story short, I can think of many better ways to deploy that cash for the purpose of paying utility bills.

    --
    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
    1. Re:Utillity stocks by mysidia · · Score: 1

      I think buyers are expecting to (1) PROFIT from anticipated crypto appreciation, AND (2) Use the heat to do useful work instead of having to pay for cooling.

      The next best alternative is instead of buying one of these things....... figure out HOW Much crypto you could actually expect to mine with it in a year, And buy that quantity on an exchange instead.

      And keep using whatever existing solution you're using to heat your place.... electric space heaters are less than $500 though, so this isn't a great deal as far as heaters go.

  8. LOL by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 2

    Is it April 1st already?

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  9. Re:You Qarnot be serious. by Mr0bvious · · Score: 2

    I'm not fat.

    Talk about presumptuous!

    --
    Never happened. True story.
  10. Re:You Qarnot be serious. by war4peace · · Score: 1

    I must be an illusion, then.

    --
    ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
  11. Funny hack by manu0601 · · Score: 1

    Someone will hack it and heat you to death on a sunny summer day.

  12. Immediately obsolete by tgeller · · Score: 1

    Heaters usually last for decades.

    Crypto mining hardware is usually obsolete within a year.

    See the problem?

    --
    Tom Geller