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Helium outdoor device

113•posted •active

Hey everyone!

I’m considering setting up a Helium outdoor hotspot/miner and wanted to hear from others who have experience with them. I’m located in Florida, but I’m open to hearing insights from people in any region.

A few questions:

What kind of coverage and earnings are you seeing?
How has your experience been with installation, weather resistance, and support?
Are outdoor setups worth the investment in your area?

Any device recommendations or tips would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

Great investment

Yes

Helium Wifi

113•posted •active

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11 replies by 6 users

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im prob just repeating something that the pros thats already responded most likely mentioned. im nowhere near these Helium OGs, matter of fact, im just barely coming up on my 1st year anniversary. so here is my take.

helium outdoor units i purchased 2 last july and the third beginning of the year. ROI is, was pretty good actually. use Helium builder (planner) app to DYOR as to addresses where you want to set up. and then play around with the different layers, ie, where the potential multi reward hexes are. pay attention to the direction, height, and angle you input as well so that the data fed back to you is as accurate as possible.

keep in mind that the potential payout that the planner shows is not the actual total that you will receive. i dont know about everyone else, but from my experience, the rewards showed was about only half of what i actually pulled in. i believe it just showed what you would get for the daily proof of connection. but you also makre substantially a lot more with the more devices that connects to your “free wifi”/helium mobile users/ carrier off loads.

back to my units, so i had two on my roof, im in denver. i gor a thrid to put at my in laws house. according to the planner. their houise suppose to net as much as my two combined. but ended up not hooking it up there because couldnt get the unit to hit 100 mbs consistently. so i ended up putting a thrd on my roof. but being it was february in colorado, i half assed just threw it up there and the signals all criss crossed and yeah, heavily affected my rewards. in theory, one hyex is allowed 3 devices, and when placed correwcrlty, should form a perfect 360 coverage. but to get it right, one would have to plan it, and execute it all in one go to not disrupt the rewards aka the bottom line aka cash monies.

anyways sorry, my adhd kicked in and i was gonna tell you about the one time where i did this thing and… FOCUS, FOCUS.. its now summer and im just barely fixing my wingbits that needed to be mounted highter and so im finally getting the 3 helium outdoors positioned correctly. LOL GOOD LUCK.

2 months ago

It's unfortunate that the project isn't yet available in many countries.

2 months ago

thanks for the tag @CoinChaser I’m a pretty good person to ask.

I have over 100 HM outdoors. Some are outside but many are inside homes or businesses because of HM Outdoor units’ higher potential PoC earnings.

Re: your quesions

What kind of coverage and earnings are you seeing?
I bought the largest portion of mine between April-July 2024 and I’ve averaged over $1,000 a unit. Especially early on in the Helium Wi-Fi era like Dec 2023 through 2024 I relied a lot on PoC earnings and would stack 3 to 6 in a 1.0x area since I was pretty confident they’d pay for themselves even with little paid offload back then. And they did… something like $1,400 each on average if you don’t include ones I’ve bought recently,.

Right now I’m only averaging something like $3 a day per Outdoor. It’s low partly due to $HNT down about a third the last couple weeks, and also because I have a bunch overstacked to have extras on hand earning something while I add new locations. For example at least a dozen will go to 3 or 4 brand new awesome locations over the next couple weeks.

But the better question is how do you determine if you have any good earning locations? Go to https://planner.hellohelium.com/planner, click on Advanced Planner (lower left), and try addresses where you’re able to deploy. This will let you see how much PoC you can earn. If it’s a business location with good footfall and long dwell times then you can start to factor in paid offload which in a good location can make PoC earnings be negligible by comparison.
How has your experience been with installation, weather resistance, and support?

Installation is easy. Helium makes these things suitable for people without any idea of how to setup a network so just zip tie them to a pole, screw them into drywall, whatever and just plug it in with ethernet. I always have a bunch of cheap 8 to 10 port PoE++ switches that cost $30-$40 on Amazon so I don’t have to keep individual PoE injectors on hand for each AP

Weather resistance hasn’t been a problem for the ones I’ve actually placed outside.

I haven’t had to use support but beware that Helium will change up whatever they want to and you’re stuck with it. I could complain about a few different things that nuked my rewards but it is what it is, they’re still very profitable albeit risky since you’re stuck with their overpriced Helium-only hardware. If you have a great non-residential location to pass data and know a bit about networks then buy APs from XNET and deploy with them because you’re not paying a huge premium for so-so gear like with Helium.
Are outdoor setups worth the investment in your area?
Use that planner tool I linked above and play around on https://world.helium.com/en/mobile. Basically it’s all about what locations you can land and let me tell you it’s really not as hard as you tihnk to get locations.

Btw what part of Florida are you at? I’m in Orlando and love sharing best practices with others… Passpoint offload is so new I have zero concern about competition and like helping others get into this stuff so long as they share what they learn as they learn it with me, too.

2 months ago

@FreeShkreli oh and don’t forget about halving coming Aug 1st

2 months ago

@FreeShkreli are your deployments in businesses you have connection with? Fsmily/friends? I am needing advice on how i can cold pitch businesses into the idea of letting me set up a deployment. I feel like most people will be worried about wifi security or have no clue about blockchain, web.3, or DePIN. And I'm not a good salesman haha

2 months ago

@FreeShkreli yes I have thought about that to. Would it still be worth it to set up new deployments?

2 months ago

@FreeShkreli thank you for the awesome advice and the time to explain every detail thanks much

2 months ago

@JAMBAJUICE good question re: would I buy now, since the only relevant question is how to act today and not how last year went. I’ll answer your other Q in a separate reply.

Scenarios where I’d place Helium Mobile Indoor (HMI) unit(s) today:
- If I didn’t know how to setup an access point properly on a network (I do but many don’t) and wanted fairly straightforward “plug it in and earn tokens” usability then place an HMI on a non-residential, indoor location with moderate footfall and dwell time such as a bar, busy retail, or restaurant.
- Residential location in a 1.0x boosted location if you just want to collect around 75 cents a day or so lately for the PoC $. HMIs are averaging around 0.3-0.35 $HNT per day but that’s fallen from around 0.4 just a few weeks ago as the value of $HNT fell the past few weeks. This is because fewer $HNT rewards go towards PoC because data offload is calculated in flat rate USD per GB and thus paid data gobbles up more daily $HNT emissions when $HNT gets cheaper in USD terms.
- Basically the HMI is a cheaper way to get in the game of passing data via Passpoint with multiple carriers if you have a decent location likely to be approved for carrier offload and you expect to earn more with passing GBs vs harvesting PoC.

Scenarios where I’d place Helium Mobile Outdoor (HMO) units today:
- If I didn’t know how to setup an access point properly on a network (I do but many don’t) and wanted fairly straightforward “plug it in and earn tokens” usability then place an HMI on a non-residential, outdoor location with moderate or better footfall and dwell time such as a bar, busy retail, or restaurant. Think: walkable, human-scale streets, across the street from a park, etc.
- I place three HMO in a residential location surrounded by a 1.0x boost to collect PoC. You can stagger them by 120 degrees to get full coverage using three units. Duplicated coverage’s value for PoC is cut in half, so I’m not doing more than three anymore in a single location, and if it weren’t for the PoC I’d probably only have one HMO in each location. HMO in a 1.0x boost earn around $3 a day lately just from the PoC $. HMOs are averaging around 1.3-1.55 $HNT per day but that’s fallen from around 1.6 just a few weeks ago as the value of $HNT fell the past few weeks. This is because fewer $HNT rewards go towards PoC because data offload is calculated in flat rate USD per GB and thus paid data gobbles up more daily $HNT emissions when $HNT gets cheaper in USD terms.
- Remember that you can place a HMO inside. Just because it’s “outdoor” doesn’t mean it needs to be outdoors… think of it as a PoC coverage spreading thing more than anything else because Helium will approve (or not approve) HMIs and HMOs for carrier offload equally randomly lately in my experience.

And the third option that many of you guys aren’t considering is XNET.

FYI I’m on the XNET Mobile Working Group but they don’t pay me so I don’t see me talking them up as a conflict of interest but it’s worth mentioning.

I have some good non-residential locations stacked with both HMOs and XNET APs. XNET only allows non-residential coverage so literally don’t try this at home lol.

I only do XNET where I think I can get at least a minimum of 3GB every 2 weeks, mostly over AT&T (which is not hard) since they have a direct deal with AT&T for Passpoint offload. The reason I say 3GB+ per 2 week epoch is because that earns you a share of the pool of $XNET that’s allocated to paying for what’s essentially PoC… it encourages smaller deployers to get into it because it makes the ROI a no-brainer on their less expensive hardware. For example I earned a little over $200 this last 2 week epoch using an XP6-Pro (just an Alta AP6-Pro with XNET firmware added) that only cost me like $200ish and this was in a 30-ish seat strip mall restaurant. I also had HMOs up in the ceiling at that location, too, until 2 of them randomly dropped off and I have to physically go over there and pass some Helium Mobile data over it or return it if one or both got bricked by their screwed up firmware update a few weeks ago. Btw that took out something like 4-6% of my HMOs which I’ll find out as I physically go to the last locations and see what’s wrong with them. ANYWAYS…

If you don’t know anything about, say, setting up your home’s router then I would not recommend XNET unless you can at least learn the basics of network setup. It’s not quite as plug-in-and-earn-immediately as Helium. Sometimes you will have to reach out to support or do a web search to figure out why your AP isn’t passing data. But on the plus side you are buying hardware that’s not locked into a project like with Helium, so if you spend $500 on a HMO and don’t do well then you better hope they didn’t become outdated hardware and selling for parts value like FreedomFi 5G CBRS gateways are today. You could sell, say, your two XP6-Pros that cost $500 as AP6-Pros which is the box they come in and get a good portion of that back on eBay or wherever since they’re useful hardware even not earning crypto. I’ll leave out the link to buy XNET gear because it’s not sold through HeliumDeploy.com and if you can’t find where to buy them then you’re probably not clever enough to set one up!

If you appreciate my walls of text and also like saving money here’s my affiliate codes to use at HeliumDeploy.com

FREESHKRELI = 10% off all products under $500
FREEDSHKRELI = $50 off all products over $500

2 months ago

@FreeShkreli also be sure to consider the fact that $HNT emissions are halving on August 1st 2025 so if you’re considering buying units to rely mostly on their PoC that’s gonna come down a lot in 6 weeks from now.

2 months ago

@JAMBAJUICE re: are your deployments in businesses you have connection with? Fsmily/friends?

Yep I started with friends that live in 0.7+ PoC areas and pay them 25% denominated in USD since it removes the hesitation most normal people have in dealing with crypto. Some deployers pay more or less (20% seems common) but others just pitch from the “better cell phone connectivity” angle and/or that they’ll pay for having a separate broadband wired connection or even Starlink if it’s on, say, a food truck with a permanent location but no ability to have wired backhaul.

re: I am needing advice on how i can cold pitch businesses into the idea of letting me set up a deployment.

Get excited about it and it’s contagious. I started scaling up just by asking a good friend if I could keep a few crypto miners in his closet that take almost no power and then surprised him with a couple hundred bucks a few months later which was his 25% cut. Then word spread.

re: I feel like most people will be worried about wifi security or have no clue about blockchain, web.3, or DePIN.

I’m shocked at how almost everyone I talk with that comes through a friend’s recommendation (some friends get a cut of that 25% total I pay out between host and referrer, btw) has NO IDEA that they shouldn’t let some person they barely know connect some mystery box hardware to their network. They’re lucky I’m careful about it but honestly it’s baffling to me with the lack of any pushback. Just ask.

re: And I'm not a good salesman haha

GET EXCITED. It’s contagious. I bring in hundreds a day on average over the past 2 years, and several of my friends have each earned 4 figures for doing almost nothing. It’s worth getting excited about and that’s contagious, simple as. Try to not promise dollar amounts though because setting expectations is a bummer when things like this past few weeks of $HNT going down like 40% happen.. they should see it as basically free money and not as reliable income.

2 months ago

Hey I feel if you look at @FreeShkreli profile you will find over 50 Helium Wifi miners with rewards. This would give you a good idea of how much you can earn.

2 months ago

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Helium outdoor device | Moken Forum

Replies

11 replies by 6 users

Write a reply...

2 months ago

It's unfortunate that the project isn't yet available in many countries.

2 months ago

What kind of coverage and earnings are you seeing?
I bought the largest portion of mine between April-July 2024 and I’ve averaged over $1,000 a unit. Especially early on in the Helium Wi-Fi era like Dec 2023 through 2024 I relied a lot on PoC earnings and would stack 3 to 6 in a 1.0x area since I was pretty confident they’d pay for themselves even with little paid offload back then. And they did… something like $1,400 each on average if you don’t include ones I’ve bought recently,.

Right now I’m only averaging something like $3 a day per Outdoor. It’s low partly due to $HNT down about a third the last couple weeks, and also because I have a bunch overstacked to have extras on hand earning something while I add new locations. For example at least a dozen will go to 3 or 4 brand new awesome locations over the next couple weeks.

But the better question is how do you determine if you have any good earning locations? Go to https://planner.hellohelium.com/planner, click on Advanced Planner (lower left), and try addresses where you’re able to deploy. This will let you see how much PoC you can earn. If it’s a business location with good footfall and long dwell times then you can start to factor in paid offload which in a good location can make PoC earnings be negligible by comparison.
How has your experience been with installation, weather resistance, and support?

Installation is easy. Helium makes these things suitable for people without any idea of how to setup a network so just zip tie them to a pole, screw them into drywall, whatever and just plug it in with ethernet. I always have a bunch of cheap 8 to 10 port PoE++ switches that cost $30-$40 on Amazon so I don’t have to keep individual PoE injectors on hand for each AP

Weather resistance hasn’t been a problem for the ones I’ve actually placed outside.

I haven’t had to use support but beware that Helium will change up whatever they want to and you’re stuck with it. I could complain about a few different things that nuked my rewards but it is what it is, they’re still very profitable albeit risky since you’re stuck with their overpriced Helium-only hardware. If you have a great non-residential location to pass data and know a bit about networks then buy APs from XNET and deploy with them because you’re not paying a huge premium for so-so gear like with Helium.
Are outdoor setups worth the investment in your area?
Use that planner tool I linked above and play around on https://world.helium.com/en/mobile. Basically it’s all about what locations you can land and let me tell you it’s really not as hard as you tihnk to get locations.

2 months ago

@FreeShkreli oh and don’t forget about halving coming Aug 1st

2 months ago

@FreeShkreli yes I have thought about that to. Would it still be worth it to set up new deployments?

2 months ago

@FreeShkreli thank you for the awesome advice and the time to explain every detail thanks much

2 months ago

FREESHKRELI = 10% off all products under $500
FREEDSHKRELI = $50 off all products over $500

2 months ago

Hey I feel if you look at @FreeShkreli profile you will find over 50 Helium Wifi miners with rewards. This would give you a good idea of how much you can earn.

2 months ago

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