The Canaan Avalon Q is a Bitcoin miner for the home. Unlike a normal ASIC, Canaan designed it specifically for a flat, an office or a workshop: an upright housing closer to a modern desktop tower than to a classic ASIC miner, three switchable operating modes, a noise level a room can live with, and 90 TH/s from an ordinary socket. We have it in stock.
Output, draw and the three operating modes
Canaan quotes 90 TH/s at 1,674 watts for the highest stage, which works out at 18.6 joules per terahash. We set the machine up ourselves and ran through all three stages:
- Eco: 55 TH/s at 875 watts, around 15.9 J/TH
- Standard: roughly 80 TH/s at 1,450 watts, around 18.1 J/TH
- Super: 90 TH/s at 1,674 watts, 18.6 J/TH
The order is worth noting: the thriftiest stage is also the most efficient one. In Eco mode the Avalon Q squeezes more hashrate out of every kilowatt hour than in Super mode while almost halving its draw. As with every miner, the figure actually measured at the socket tends to sit a little above the manufacturer's number.
Against normal ASICs at 10 to 13 joules per terahash the Avalon Q falls behind. It pays for its living-room manners in efficiency, and that trade is precisely the point of the device.
Noise: what really separates it from a normal ASIC
An ordinary ASIC miner is about as loud as a vacuum cleaner, which is why it cannot be housed in a flat. The Avalon Q moves between 45 and 65 decibels. On the lower stage it barely stands out more than a fridge; in Super mode the fan audibly picks up but stays liveable indoors. It does not belong on a bedside table, but a corner of a room, an office or a garden house is fine.
The housing measures 455 x 130 x 440 mm. Canaan does not publish a full data sheet with weight, connection values and temperature range; the figures above come from our product data and from our own setup, and they match Canaan's own numbers for hashrate, draw and efficiency.
What is in the box, and how the Avalon Q is set up
The box holds everything needed to start: the power cable with a C19 plug, so not the usual cold-device connector, an antenna for the wireless network, 3M anti-slip pads for the surface underneath, and a manual that can also be opened in German. A QR code inside leads to the Avalon Family app.
There are two ways to set it up. Over a LAN cable you reach the miner's interface in a browser at its IP address. The app is simpler: it pairs with the device over Bluetooth, hands over the wireless credentials, and from then on the miner sits on the wireless network. In the app you set a new device password, since the factory one is "admin", enter the pool details and switch between the operating modes. Without pool details the Avalon Q stays in standby, as it has nowhere to send the work it does. Machines can be named and assigned to rooms, which keeps things clear once there is more than one. The app assumes no prior knowledge, and anyone still unsure can set the miner up together with us.
We use ViaBTC ourselves and have had good experiences with it. Two fallback pools can be stored on top of that; they are rarely needed.
Heating, and putting solar surplus to work
In Super mode around 1.7 kilowatts go into the Avalon Q, and almost the same energy comes back out as heat. Physically this is an electric heater, except that the current does not pass through heating elements but through compute chips that produce satoshis on the way. A small room grows noticeably warm after a few hours, and in winter that is exactly the purpose.
The second case is photovoltaics. Surplus power that goes into the grid for a few cents can be sent into the Avalon Q instead, turning electricity that earns almost nothing into Bitcoin and heat. Anyone wanting the miner to run only during surplus hours uses the modes for it: Eco on dull days, Super under full sun.
A machine with 90 TH/s still holds only a tiny share of the Bitcoin network. Anyone running one at home does so for the heat, the learning and their own contribution to the network. Anyone after a pure return calculation is better served by a normal ASIC in hosting.
The Avalon Q and the Avalon Mini 3
From the same family we carry the smaller Avalon Mini 3 at 37.5 TH/s. The Avalon Q is the stronger of the two and the only one that comes anywhere near a normal ASIC on paper. Next to the big Antminers, the miner comparison ranks it by daily yield.
Verdict: Bitcoin mining with the Canaan Avalon Q
For us the Avalon Q is an outstanding machine. Operation is cleanly solved, it is very quiet for a device running at home, and it can be controlled comfortably from an app. A Bitcoin miner hardly gets friendlier for beginners: unpack, connect, set up, and someone without prior experience will manage. Anyone who wants to learn Bitcoin mining learns it on this machine. Build quality is high, and our experience with Canaan has so far been almost entirely positive.
We particularly recommend two uses: heating, and putting photovoltaic surplus to work. In this class the Avalon Q is our top device by some distance. Nobody gets rich with it, but as an entry into Bitcoin mining and as a heater that earns something on the side there is currently nothing better.
We show how the Avalon Q is unpacked, connected and set up through the app step by step in our Avalon Q video tutorial on YouTube, with our verdict at the end. The video is in German.
The Bitcoin mining calculator takes your electricity price and gives the daily return of the Avalon Q. Bitcoin price and Bitcoin network hashrate pull the figure one way or the other every day; both sit in the cockpit, together with the Bitcoin pools.
