Overview

We own a Heatbit Trio and use it to heat our office. We believe that Bitcoin mining heaters are an area worth focusing on in the long term. This is because we believe that as the economic life of application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) increases and production costs decrease, the use case for heating may eventually become economically significant in the Bitcoin mining industry. If heating is needed anyway, such as to keep an office warm, then this would theoretically make mining 100% energy efficient and have zero operating energy costs.

The problem is that the lifespan of an average non-mining heater is perhaps 10-15 years, while new and more efficient Bitcoin mining machines are constantly emerging. At the same time, Bitcoin ASICs are expensive to produce, so investing in ASICs only makes sense if they are always mining (not just when they are needed for heating). However, it can be speculated that in the long term, partly due to the physical limitations of Moore's Law, the rate of improvement in ASIC efficiency will slow, allowing ASICs to mine economically for longer periods of time, such as 10 years. As there are fewer emerging risky technologies involved, production costs should also decrease. When this develops to a certain point, it may make sense to integrate Bitcoin mining with heating equipment. For example, swimming pools, commercial boilers, domestic boilers, and commercial and domestic electric heating systems. Therefore, we find Heatbit's business model very interesting and a company we are eager to follow closely.

The Heatbit device we got can mine at up to 400 W. If you feel cold, you can turn the heating up to 1,400 W, with the extra 1,000 W used just for heating and not mining.

Initial impressions

The device is essentially an old Bitcoin miner in a nice round steel case with less fan noise than your average dedicated Bitcoin miner. It’s designed to be a consumer-friendly device that competes with Dyson, perhaps, rather than Bitcoin geeks.

One major downside we initially found was that while the device can be monitored remotely in the mobile app, it doesn’t seem possible to control the device from within the app. This seems like an important missing feature. Regular, non-mining heaters don’t really require an internet connection, but since mining heaters obviously do, being able to control the heater remotely seems like a given. Expensive Dyson products have this feature. Perhaps the company could add this feature with an upgrade to the mobile app. We also found the Heatbit’s display to be a bit clunky compared to the Dyson air purifiers. While the Heatbit is a neat and nice looking device, we felt it was noticeably behind similarly priced Dyson products in terms of looks and control panel.

Another downside we found is that it doesn’t seem possible to choose your own mining pool. The product is designed to be more consumer-friendly, rather than allowing customization or complex operations like solo mining. However, it seems like it would be useful to have this feature added to the settings. This again would only require a software update.

Machine operation indicators

The first thing we noticed when operating the machine was the sound. We conducted our mining tests in an already noisy office, with an ambient noise level of about 48.5 dBA. Therefore, we originally thought that we would not be able to test a machine that claims to produce 40 dB of noise. However, the miner is clearly loud, and we recorded a sound amplitude of 56.5 dB when the machine was turned on. Using decibel math (which we admit we don’t understand the science of and are not entirely sure if it applies in this case), we calculated the sound produced by the Heatbit as follows: 56.5 dB – 48.5 dB = 55.8 dB. This is much higher than the claimed level of 40 dB. Assuming our decibel calculations are correct, this is a bit disappointing. But it is still much quieter than a normal ASIC miner, which can produce sound levels of about 80 dB.

Typical power consumption of the machine in mining-only mode is around 440W, slightly above the 400W reported in the application. The application also typically reports a hashrate of around 10 TH/s. However, since we cannot view the pool settings or what the pool reports, we cannot verify this. Therefore, the only real way to verify the hashrate is to wait for us to receive our Bitcoin rewards and then try to reverse calculate the hashrate we have.

According to the data reported by the mobile app, the mining energy efficiency is about 40 J/Th. This is comparable to the efficiency of the most advanced ASICs released in the first quarter of 2020 (about 5 years ago). The Heatbit retails for $1,000, and purchasing an old 2020 miner costs much less than this. However, if you want to use an old miner as an office heater, you may want to try to modify it to reduce the noise level and cover the components to prevent office workers from fiddling with the device. In addition, unmodified miners are not consumer-friendly products, so they are more challenging to set up. This is basically the advantage of the Heatbit product, it looks like a regular heating product, so it will not attract attention or create problems in a traditional office environment.

in conclusion

Considering the cost of commercial electricity, this miner is clearly a loss leader. However, if it is just a space heater and you only use the miner when you need it for heating, then the electricity cost is zero. This makes mining economically viable after deducting the capital cost of the machine. You could probably buy a simple equivalent electric heater for about $200, and it would take years for this miner to make up the $800 difference. Therefore, this miner doesn't make much sense financially. Another product that can be compared to the Heatbit is the Dyson air purifier, which retails for about $780, just a few hundred dollars less than the Heatbit. In our opinion, the Dyson air purifier looks better, has superior air quality control features, and has a better mobile app. However, compared to the expensive Dyson heater, you can argue that the Heatbit does offer financial savings because it mines Bitcoin.

One can see tax advantages to this miner, for example a business owner could heat their office, write off the cost of the machine and the energy costs as an allowable tax loss, and then keep the bitcoins personally. In this case, this machine may be economical as a miner. Please note that we do not provide tax advice and are not sure if this tax treatment is correct. This is an interesting product that may make sense for a well-funded tech startup with an office in a cold region. Heatbit is a business we will continue to watch and we hope that they launch now at the right time.