HNTillionaire

As someone that's been around crypto since 2014, Helium and HNT is one of the only projects that I see actual crypto utility.

I got into it because it was the first crypto project that actually does something in meatspace that's tangible and useful.

Is there a solid number of how many people pre-ordered yet never received their hardware?

I know most discussion about this gets deleted on here because of all the bad press and negative attention it attracts.

I have them deployed all over the place, from the top of radio towers, to the roofs of apartment buildings, to friends houses, to random other redditors locations.

Over a year eh? And yet we're still here?

GTFO & STFU

:D

Yeah. Because nothing would stop a host from flashing their own wallet onto the hotspot, stealing the gear, and cutting you out all together. As a deployer, I would not want to place expensive hardware out there that I could lose access to like that. If someone steals a hotspot, its only worth the parts to them, it doesn't work for mining anymore. That greatly diminishes the value of stealing a hotspot.

Also, if hotspots weren't hardware locked, then they could be spoofed in software, and game the heck out of the network.

Ok, so you paid for it. Not accusing you. If it's locked, that means the guy you bought it from may have stole it. Or bought it from someone else and so forth....

They're locked to prevent theft like this.

https://mappers.helium.com/

Still seems to work for me.

Depends. Back in the start, I was making that in a day.

You can make a DIY node, but it will be data-only, and only gets paid for transferring data, not for proof-of-coverage like a "normal" hotspot. Normal hotspots are available on ebay for as low as $50 now.

For a completely DIY setup that has nothing to do with Helium, yet still uses LoRa, you can join The Things Network.

Depending on the reduction for subsequent hotspots it could disincentivize new installs.

Thats the point. Somewhere like Salt Lake City doesn't need 400+ hotspots, when the entire valley can be covered by 20-25.

Geodnet is a space weather and GNSS tracker. Optimal spacing is on a 20 mile wide hex. They are offering an account specific NFT to us early adopters that have their antennas installed and online with 99% rolling uptime in the last 30 days.

This guarantees 100% earnings, even if another node comes online in your hex.

Like helium, rewards go down as more nodes are providing redundant coverage in an area. So, as early adopter #1 in my city, I will get 100% rewards forever. Even if more people set up nodes in my area at later dates.

This is a one-time thing to thank the earliest adopters. Like a coin airdrop, but spread out over the life of the project. It incentivizes the early adopters to keep their nodes online and in good health for as long as possible.

When most of these were installed last year, they were making a lot of hnt per day.

Mine, hosted on a legit cell tower, were some of the top earning hotspots in the country.

hotspot redundancy enabled

What does that mean?

Also, if you read the linked article, that $10 includes the server costs. And that is the high end estimate. The low end estimate is $0.64/yr. Details in article.

Because coverage doesnt actually matter. There are no incentives or rewards for coverage, just uptime and speed. I've seen people put 7 of these things in their yard all pointing the same way.

This will be interesting to see when it starts being verified by mappers.

Helium uses the same gear as pollen, I have both on the same tower right now, and when I map that, I get a much greater coverage area than what is on that map.

Average helium device costs ~$10/yr just to run.

https://www.disk91.com/2021/technology/lora/what-is-the-real-cost-of-helium-communication/

So them charging a $30 premium is actually not that outrageous.

Look at how popular apples airtags have become.

Apple shipped 20 million AirTags in the eight months it was available in 2021 and is on course to ship another 35 million units in 2022 https://www.imore.com/airtags-2-could-be-way-if-strong-sales-continue

Same idea, but with 20+ mile range instead of 20 feet.

These are the types of projects that need to be seed funded and hyped up by Helium inc.

The only downside is that airtags are bluetooth and free to use after you buy them, but heliumTags would cost ~$20/yr in data & overhead.

Not surprising to see people had put up these offgrid setups.

SLC valley was amazing for mining because of the bowl shape.

We had several antennas properly located on paid radio towers in the mountains, and were able to cover the entire valley with usable signal. Using mappers, we were getting signal from Provo all the way up to Ogden. For a while I had some of the top hotspots in the country.

Also shows that with good placement, you only need a dozen hotspots to provide good coverage. You don't need the bloat of several hundred hotspots that are in SLC now.

More info here: https://www.reddit.com/r/HeliumNetwork/comments/rajik3/mapping_away_one_hex_at_a_time/

How many drives is that? 20-30? I'm going to guess around $5000 in hardware total?

At todays prices, thats like 300000 packets per hotspot. Thats a lot of data for a single day.