Avalon Nano 3S review: the Bitcoin miner that heats the room

The packaging is neat. In the box: the miner, a 140 W power supply with your region’s adapter, a Wi-Fi dongle and a quick start guide.

It is compact: 205 × 115 × 57 mm and 860 g, easy to place anywhere. On the front, a small screen shows the basics, and the air outlet can be adjusted, which matters since it also works as a space heater. On the side, a USB-C port and the Wi-Fi dongle slot. It comes in black or white depending on the seller.

It is a SHA-256 ASIC miner, Bitcoin’s algorithm. Canaan rates it at 6 TH/s, 50% more than the Nano 3, for the same power draw, around 140 W maximum, with an efficiency of 23.3 J/TH. Noise is 33 to 40 dB: a desktop computer.

Over a year, at €0.20 per kWh, expect about €245 of electricity. But in winter, you would have paid for part of that heat anyway.

Plug in the power supply, insert the Wi-Fi dongle and switch it on. Setup goes through the Avalon Family app, on iOS and Android: connect the miner to your Wi-Fi, then enter the pool. Change the default password right away: it is admin.

To mine solo, just enter the pool address and your Bitcoin address: in the video I pointed it at Public Pool. To mine on FindMyBlock, my solo pool: the guide.

The app sets the work mode: low, medium or high, which changes the power draw and the hashrate. It also drives the LEDs (colour, brightness, fixed, flashing, breathing or loop effects) and shows live hashrate and temperature. A detail, but it helps the machine fit into a home.

The miner’s screen gives the basics, handy to check it is running without opening the app. For the more technical, a command-line tool, Avalon NanoCLI, drives the machine from a terminal: change modes, set the LEDs or read the stats, for example to tie it into home automation.

As promised, it is very quiet: you can keep it next to you while working, even in a bedroom, without being bothered. All the electricity it uses ends up as heat, and the adjustable outlet lets you send it into the room: in winter it is a small heater that mines. I talk about it in my video on mining for heat (in French).

Not really, and that is not its goal. In a regular pool it slowly accumulates satoshis while helping secure and decentralise the network. Solo, it is a lottery ticket: about 1 chance in 3,190 per year of finding a whole block (network as of 17 October 2026). And it happens: in May 2026, an Avalon Nano 3S found block 951,771 solo, within a small fleet of about 147 TH/s.

Like any SHA-256 miner, it can also mine other coins on the same algorithm, such as Bitcoin Cash: check what that really earns first.

The Avalon Nano 3S is not built to compete with farms: it is a home miner. It suits people who want to take part in the network and learn how proof of work works, people stacking satoshis little by little, and people who want to try solo. If it runs in a living space, its quietness and its heat are two real arguments.

If you want the best efficiency rather than heat, look at the Thor X1 or the NerdOctaxe.