Here is the question, Is Bobcat 300 a Light Hotspot? Yes. Bobcat Miner 300 is a high-efficiency miner hotspot for HNT. It works with Helium LongFi, a system that fuses the most popular wireless LoRaWAN protocol with Helium Blockchain technology.
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Bobcat Miner 300 – Helium Hotspot Miner
Modern LoRaWAN hotspot Bobcat Miner 300 is compatible with the pioneering peer-to-peer network Helium People’s Network. Bobcat Miner 300 offers a fantastic opportunity for a passive source of income with a very good return on investment by combining the benefits of two rapidly expanding technologies: blockchain and the Internet of Things.
All typical LoRaWAN devices are compatible with the hotspot. In addition it supports Helium Blockchain and the LongFi technology architecture. It is a fully functional miner for HNT, the cryptocurrency of Helium, enabling its owner to make passive income as long as the network is up and running.
The device has a 4dbi enhanced antenna for increased network coverage, a quad-core processor, one Ethernet port, one com port, a TF Card slot, LoRa (923MHZ/915MHz/868MHz/470MHz), 1G DDR3, Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11 b/g/n), and Bluetooth interfaces. Dark Gray is the color, and the measurements are 141 x 141 x 47 mm.
The Bobcat Miner 300 is totally independent and extremely high-efficient. The battery lasts at least five years and is based on technology with extremely low power consumption (5W). It’s also very environmentally friendly – both in terms of energy consumption of the antenna and in terms of the nature of HNT mining, which is unrelated to power consumption.
You can take part in the development of a brand-new, completely decentralized wireless network with the Bobcat Miner 300. With a range of up to 10+ miles, one hotspot can connect tens of thousands of LoRaWAN devices.
Participate in the Internet of Things’ next-generation global wireless operator while also generating passive income.
What Changed for the Helium Network and Hotspots?
On July 14th, 2022, Helium switched over to their new Rust-based gateway-rs Miner software from their previous Erlang-based Miner software. As a result of this change and some other previous changes, hotspots no longer sync the blockchain! It’s finally time to say goodbye to syncing gaps!
The main changes are:
- Hotspots no longer keep a copy of the blockchain and do not sync any blockchain data. The blockchain is monitored by validators, who update hotspots with this data.
- Hotspots no longer challenge one another to a beacon battle. Validators now issue the challenges.
- Hotspots no longer participate in libp2p gossip style communication and now use gRPC for distributed communication, meaning there is no more relayed status and port 44158 no longer needs to be forwarded. The Miner now initiates only outbound traffic to the Validator and most routers allow all outbound traffic by default – there is no longer any need to forward 44158/22/443/80/1680/8080 or any other ports as there is no more inbound traffic (you will notice Inbound is always greyed out when viewing your Hotspot on the Helium Explorer; this is to be expected).
Note: If Bobcat support requests it, port 22 should only be forwarded; otherwise, you should always close port 22 for security reasons.
What Do I Need to Be Aware of Going Forward?
These are the main things to keep in mind:
- Nothing needs to be done to update your hotspots to software that isn’t too heavy. The update ought to be processed automatically as long as the hotspot is connected to the internet. Most hotspots have already updated as of the time of writing. If you want to be sure, check the Diagnoser or Web Dashboard – if your OTA Version is 1.0.3.1 or higher, you’re already running software for a light hotspot!
- With the removal of blockchain storage and syncing, data usage will drop dramatically, wear and tear on miner embedded memory and SD card storage will be greatly decreased, and many of the most frequent issues (blockchain corruption, syncing gaps) will no longer affect hotspots.
- Because there is no more blockchain gap, peer book, need to port forward 44158, etc – these features have been removed from the Diagnoser and Web Dashboard. The Diagnoser and Web Dashboard no longer display information about the blockchain gap, the status of port 44158, and other items. Resync and Fast Sync have been removed as they no longer serve any purpose.
- Prior to the changes, “Lone Wolf” hotspots – those without other functioning hotspots nearby within range to exchange beacons/witnesses – were able to earn by issuing challenges as this was done over the internet and not via radio waves. Now due to the fact that Validators handle issuing challenges, Lone Wolf hotspots will no longer be able to perform any PoC activity to earn rewards. The only options if you have a hotspot in this circumstance are to 1) move it to a location where other functional hotspots are within LoRa range or 2) install additional hotspots close to your current hotspot yourself (keep in mind that the minimum distance between hotspots is recommended as 300 meters, too close and your beacons/witnesses will be discarded as invalid for being too close to the source).
Last, Is Bobcat 300 a Light Hotspot?
Yes. Bobcat Miner 300 is a high-efficiency miner hotspot for HNT. It works with Helium LongFi, a system that fuses the most popular wireless LoRaWAN protocol with Helium Blockchain technology.
Thank you for reading.
