This is a problem that’s frequently encountered when setting up a Bobcat miner for the first time. As the message suggests there’s been an error with getting your miner on boarded or initialized on to the Helium Blockchain.
There are a few different ways to solve the problem.
- Unplug the Bobcat miner. Wait for a few minutes and try again. This should solve the problem
- If 1. did not solve the problem then try clearing the cache on your phone
- If 1. or 2. did not solve your problem, then contact Bobcat support – they should be able to solve this problem
Note that after receiving your miner,it should be connected via Ethernet and online for at least an hour before you attempt to onboard it using the Bobber App.
This will ensure that you have the latest over-the-air update. This will make sure you do not get the “onboarding key not found” error that some users encounter when adding a hotspot that has an older firmware version.
Background
What is Helium?
Helium is a network that connects Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices like dog tags, environmental sensors, bike trackers and more. It consists of miners or hotspots connected to one another over the internet. Data from IoT tags is transmitted to Helium Miners and then across the Helium network to their destination.
How do I mine Helium?
In order to mine Helium you need dedicated hardware called a Helium hotspot or miner. There are many hotspot vendors including Rak, Nebra and others. The hotspot is like a wireless access point that is used to communicate with sensors and other hotspots. It is also connected to the Internet over Ethernet or Wi-Fi.
Miners earn Helium Tokens also called HNT. To maximize HNT earnings, it’s important to keep the miner operational continuously. When a miner is offline or on the blink, it will not earn HNT.
What is the Bobcat miner?
Bobcat Miner 300 is a high-efficiency HNT miner. It is compatible with Helium LongFi, an architecture that combines the leading wireless LoRaWAN protocol and the Helium Blockchain technology. The miner costs over $400 on the Bobcat site but is a lot cheaper elsewhere.
In general there’s no difference between Helium miners. They largely have the same radio chips and hardware. So you’re best off picking the cheapest miner.