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Apollo BTC (full package) review
What is it? (TL;DR)
Hardware:
Backstory and price:
I preordered this Apollo BTC (batch 3) 'full unit' late summer 2021, paid it in full and received it pretty exactly 6 months later. I got the 'full unit' that includes the Orange Pi 4, compared to the 'only hashboard' option that looks the same, but has void in that spot. The price difference (right now) is $300 and for that you get the Orange Pi 4 and the 1TB SSD. I'll purposefully repeat the SBC's model name often here since until I got it I wasn't sure what it was. Their webpage always just speaks of 'our controller' and that it's faster than a Raspberry Pi 4, but never mentions that it's not 'theirs', but rather an off-the-shelf Pi 4 alternative.
Make your own judgement (maybe let you know what you think about this), but to me it appeared it's something custom, maybe even tailor-made for this application. Instead, it's the Orange Pi 4, which has less software and community support than a Raspberry Pi, and has unnecessary hardware like a GPU.
I must say that $300 for adding this SBC and SSD is steep. The 'hashboard only' option can be acquired for $524.99 right now, whereas the 'full unit' runs you $824.99. Buying an Orange Pi 4 and the exact same SSD right now, runs you pretty exactly $200, so it's a 50% premium. I'm not sure if you can just buy those yourself and mount them into a 'hashboard only' unit, or if there are missing mounting spots or holes on those. But from pictures, they look exactly the same. Just throwing an idea out there.
Setup and first impressions
Long-term usage
All in all, it's a pleasant companion; it doesn't take up a lot of space, make too much noise (*more later) or draw too much power. However: it's pretty useless if you use it the way it ships. It has no real daily utility. All the applications they claim you could or can run on the Apollo, do run, but you have to do it yourself and there are no instructions. Out of the box, it has no local block explorer (not even that useful for me), no Electrum and no Lightning on it. Add the fact that it's recommended against updating (or installing) anything, because it may break stuff; it's kind of a paperweight (if you use it as it comes out-of-the-box). More on the software below.
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| Futurebit Apollo BTC | The built-in controller (Orange Pi 4), 1TB SSD and microSD card |
What is it? (TL;DR)
- It's a very, very compact 'node in a box' with a hashboard.
- The hardware can power a full Bitcoin node, Electrum server, Core Lightning and the ASICs, but it's not going to break even quickly.
- The creator's forum topic about this device is here; and jstefanop has a support thread here.
- It's not a money printing machine.
- It's not the cheapest node you can build and you do overpay on the Orange Pi 4 & SSD.
- It's not a supercomputer (or Desktop computer).
- It's not really quiet unless you clock it down (which I don't think makes a lot of sense - more later) or add more fans.
Hardware:
- Orange Pi 4 (Rockchip RK3399, 6 cores, 64-bit; 4GB DDR4 RAM).
- 1TB Kingston NV1 NVMe SSD.
- 16GB SanDisk Industrial microSD card.
- Hashboard with 44 ASIC chips and beefy heatsink + industrial fan.
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| The Pi and SSD are cooled by air coming in through the open bottom. |
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| Orange Pi 4 back IO, hashboard microUSB and PCIe 6-pin connectors. |
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| CD for size reference | Arduino Uno for size reference |
Backstory and price:
I preordered this Apollo BTC (batch 3) 'full unit' late summer 2021, paid it in full and received it pretty exactly 6 months later. I got the 'full unit' that includes the Orange Pi 4, compared to the 'only hashboard' option that looks the same, but has void in that spot. The price difference (right now) is $300 and for that you get the Orange Pi 4 and the 1TB SSD. I'll purposefully repeat the SBC's model name often here since until I got it I wasn't sure what it was. Their webpage always just speaks of 'our controller' and that it's faster than a Raspberry Pi 4, but never mentions that it's not 'theirs', but rather an off-the-shelf Pi 4 alternative.
Quote from: https://www.futurebit.io/
At the core of our revamped Apollo Platform is a supercharged Single Board Computer (SBC). This is not your typical Raspberry Pi. Our board features [...] [emphasis mine]
Quote from: https://www.futurebit.io/
This is nearly 10x faster than our closest SBC Full Node competitor, and is nearly as fast as a dedicated desktop computer.
At the heart of the new Apollo BTC product is a revamped SBC (Single Board Computer), that is as powerful as any consumer grade desktop system and can run almost any Bitcoin Application natively on the device 24/7. [emphasis mine]
The Apollo BTC Miner Unit with our latest controller built in [emphasis mine]
Make your own judgement (maybe let you know what you think about this), but to me it appeared it's something custom, maybe even tailor-made for this application. Instead, it's the Orange Pi 4, which has less software and community support than a Raspberry Pi, and has unnecessary hardware like a GPU.
I must say that $300 for adding this SBC and SSD is steep. The 'hashboard only' option can be acquired for $524.99 right now, whereas the 'full unit' runs you $824.99. Buying an Orange Pi 4 and the exact same SSD right now, runs you pretty exactly $200, so it's a 50% premium. I'm not sure if you can just buy those yourself and mount them into a 'hashboard only' unit, or if there are missing mounting spots or holes on those. But from pictures, they look exactly the same. Just throwing an idea out there.
Setup and first impressions
- I had my own PC PSU with over 500W and just used that; no issues with that, and it's quiet.
- Setup was very easy through the Web UI (no HDMI needed) and I was mining + blockchain syncing in minutes.
- Blockchain sync and mining at the same time are discouraged, but it worked in my case. I wouldn't do it again after I experienced overheating when building Bitcoin Core. The CPU's cooling solution doesn't have much overhead.
- The hashboard performes exactly as advertised: ECO mode (~125 watts 2TH/S), Turbo mode (~200 watts 3TH/s). On their website, it says it can do 3.8TH/s, right after explaining how Turbo mode pulls 200W, so it may appear that Turbo mode equals 3.8TH/s, but that's incorrect. To go above 3.8TH/s, you will need to overclock manually and noise will be very loud. It makes no sense to pull over 300W for that extra 0.8TH/s. Quote from: https://www.futurebit.io/Hashboard: 2TH/s to 3.8TH/s* SHA256 Mining Performance
Power: 125 watts in ECO mode to 200 watts in TURBO mode
[...]
[...]
[...]
*Our FutureBit 200W power supply is limited to ~ 3 TH/s, 3.8 TH/s is only achievable with an external > 300 watt power supply - The blockchain sync was pretty fast, as advertised, but took a few days (pretty confident it was over the claimed 48h, but not by much).
Long-term usage
- I ran the device as-is for around 4 months prior to this review.
- I've expressed in their threads how pleased I am with the uptime; there were no crashes at all and it recovered by itself after internet outages, without interaction.For a change, since this is also an image thread, I want to chime in with something other than a support request, and instead speak out a big thanks for this nice little machine to jstefanop and his team. I've restarted it a few times to change settings and such, but it never stopped on its own, crashed or anything like that.
There are few things more pleasing than a system with weeks or months of uptime that just chugs along tirelessly. - In terms of profits (more on that later); I've mined a bit on NiceHash, which thanks to Lightning integration lets you withdraw starting from 0.00002BTC (right now ~$0.40USD) with no fees.
| Coin / Token / Currency | Withdrawal option | Amount to withdraw | FEE | | Bitcoin (BTC) | Lightning Network | 0.00002 BTC (min) | FREE (*) | - Most of the time though, I pointed the miner to https://kano.is/ and unfortunately this little pool found no block in this time; so I got no payouts from there. I'm fine with it though, since the consumed electricity, when running 200W is just 144kW per month, which costs me around 30-40 bucks on expensive EU power. If you pay 5cents per kWh, it's going to be less than 10. I'm not saying you should do this, but in some offices you can surely run this without anyone noticing a dent (or actually uptick) on the power bill. It's just that I happen to know people who do this (with permission).
It may have something to do with offices paying flat rates on power until a certain limit.
All in all, it's a pleasant companion; it doesn't take up a lot of space, make too much noise (*more later) or draw too much power. However: it's pretty useless if you use it the way it ships. It has no real daily utility. All the applications they claim you could or can run on the Apollo, do run, but you have to do it yourself and there are no instructions. Out of the box, it has no local block explorer (not even that useful for me), no Electrum and no Lightning on it. Add the fact that it's recommended against updating (or installing) anything, because it may break stuff; it's kind of a paperweight (if you use it as it comes out-of-the-box). More on the software below.