Qarnot reveals their first AMD/Ethereum powered heater

Qarnot reveals their first AMD/Ethereum powered heater

Qarnot reveals their first AMD/Ethereum powered heater

It has been a while since we have talked about Qarnot, the company who created a unique distributed computing platform which provides free heating to buildings.

In most PCs, heat is an unwanted side product, though Qarnot believes that it doesn’t have to be. Why not make use of this heat in a useful manner, why not use PC hardware as a way to heat your home? 

Qarnot’s original plan was to create a distributed computing platform using traditional CPUs, developing a server farm that doesn’t require expensive cooling mechanisms by using the heat to keep households warm. PCs were turned into Q.Rads, a unit for distributed computing which heated the users home while Qarnot takes up the electric bill. 

The idea is simple if you need to heat your home anyway, why not generate useful compute performance along the way? Take this idea one step further, and users could use this computational performance to earn money from your heating. Qarnot has expanded their Q.Rad concept to create their QC-1 crypto heater, which can mine cryptocurrencies to generate heat. 

Users of this crypto radiator also can earn money in the form of cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, which could be used to offset the electricity costs of running the heater and generate profit as long as the included hardware remains profitable. 

  

Qarnot reveals their first AMD/Ethereum powered heater 

This device combined two RX 580 Nitro GPUs from Sapphire to generate 60MH/s of mining performance, offering a 450W mode and a 650W boost mode for heat generation.  

The radiator is designed to run silently, making this mining PC non-intrusive, generating heat while utilising a passive cooler for cooling. All that this radiator need is an internet connection and power to function, with web-based, mobile and touch controls for the device. 

Depending on changing market conditions, these radiators can be updated to mine other cryptocurrencies, though by default these units will mine Ethereum, switching between several pre-defined modes. 

 
Qarnot reveals their first AMD/Ethereum powered heater  

Right now Qarnot’s QC-1 cryptocurrency mining radiator will cost €2,900 which is extremely expensive when considering the included hardware. Regardless Qarnot has a good idea here, reducing the environmental impact of cryptocurrency mining by using the electricity required to heat up the home of the user. A standard electric heater produces heat, nothing else, while Qarnot generates heat while earning the user money by mining a cryptocurrency. 

The only problem with this idea is that PC hardware is expensive, with the pricing of this unit being uneconomical as both a heater and dedicated mining PC. Will we see ASIC-powered mining radiators in the future?

Qarnot’s QC-1 mining system will start shipping in mid-June. 

You can join the discussion on Qarnot’s QC-1 Radeon/cryptocurrency-powered heating system on the OC3D Forums.Â