The Rowan Smart Miner, a breakdown. — RowanRewards

6 min readAug 28, 2020

A large amount of blockchain base layer solutions are hardware agnostic.

They are designed to be run on devices purchased & owned by the user, which can then be configured to act as a node for the solution.

With Rowan, we take a different approach, & supply our users with a custom device we call the Rowan Smart Miner.

The smart miner;

⚡ Counts your produced green energy, while also authenticating transactions on the blockchain.

⚡ Is lightweight & easy to install

⚡ Is built on a Raspberry Pi running a cut-down & hardened version of Linux.

⚡ Runs a “hub & spoke” configuration so it doesn’t have to store a full chain record locally.

⚡ Connects to a central dashboard the user can access.

⚡ Is the key link to bring normal users on-board as a complete solution, rather than just aiming at early adopters.

What exactly does the Rowan Smart Miner do?

The Rowan Energy Smart Miner is key in bringing our blockchain technology to the masses.

Its role in the technology & software stack is twofold;

Built with a CT current sensor, the miner first of all acts as a way to measure the energy being created.

It does this by being clipped directly onto the existing wiring, without need for high voltage electrical work.

The CT sensor measures the alternating current (AC) generated by the green energy generator such as solar panels.

This data is then sent back to the online dashboard.

At the same time, the miner authenticates the transactions on the Rowan Blockchain.

This helps ensure a decentralised security model for the main chain while making sure that you are rewarded accurately for the energy you produce.

Size matters for the Rowan Miner

Imagine if you want to mine Bitcoin right now.

How much space would you need?

How much power would you consume?

How much heat energy would be wasted?

Now imaging trying to sell that to the general public as something they should all have in their home.

No wonder user adoption isn’t where we want it yet!

But the Rowan Smart Miner is different.

We wanted a device that anyone who has solar in their homes could take.

We didn’t want one where potential customers would turn it away as it took up too much space, or turned their house into a furnace!

So we built the Rowan Smart Miner to be small, lightweight & easy to fit.

Plug-&-play technology integrated with a blockchain base layer that can help as many people as possible.

This is because we are a power company first & foremost, & we understand our customers & their needs.

We didn’t build the tech stack & then try to find a use-case, we had the use-case then we built a custom tech stack to fulfil those needs.

What exactly is the Rowan Smart Miner?

In short, it is a Raspberry Pi device, running a custom cut-down & hardened version of Linux.

If you are familiar with those things you can probably already tell why we used them!

In case you aren’t familiar with them;

The Raspberry Pi is a credit-card-sized & low-cost computer which can be customised with exactly the hardware you require for a given project.

There are countless uses for them but for our purposes they can be tailored to our tech needs (for example integrating with the CT current sensor), are low powered, & are both small & lightweight.

Linux is an operating system, just Like Windows or Mac OS.

If you use an Android device you already use it, as Android is built on Linux.

Although not as popular for home computing, much of the world’s corporate computing runs on Linux including the world’s top 500 supercomputers.

We chose Linux due to its long-term security & stability, plus the fact it is open source so can be easily customised to exact requirements.

In our case we needed it to run specific functions on the node with enhanced security.

Why does the Rowan Smart miner use a “hub & spoke” configuration?

Normal blockchains contain massive amounts of data.

The current Bitcoin chain size is 294.15 GB. So if you wanted to run a full node you would first of all have to download that entire history.

You then need a device that can store that data, not only now but also as it increases in size.

In theory in the Rowan Smart Miner, we could store the complete chain in it’s SD card.

However, the issue is not just the chain size, but also the number of transactions.

The number of re-writes on the card, of adding & removing data, would rapidly cause them to become corrupt & fail.

For a device designed to be plug & play for the home user, this is unacceptable.

The hub & spoke architecture deals with this by making the node a modular part of the central miner.

As a result, the Rowan Smart Miner does not need to store the entire chain history, & can perform it’s work on the RAM, increasing its speed & reliability.

How do users access their tokens generated through the Rowan Smart Miner?

The smart miner does the work, but the result of that work is what matters to the person generating their home solar, namely the amount of solar they produce, & the RWN tokens & value they are rewarded in.

The user-facing part of the tech stack we developed is the custom dashboard & user-management software.

The Rowan Smart Miner connects to this & it allows the user to log in & check certain data.

To begin they can check exactly how much energy they have produced, & how much carbon they have saved.

This not only allows them to generate money but can also act as an early warning system in case there are issues with their panels which cause drop-off of energy creation.

Just as importantly they can see exactly how many RWN points they have accumulated.

These points have a live value on the exchanges (currently listed on LAToken & Vindax) which is shown to the user, as well as the current total they are worth in normal money.

This is where the beauty of the blockchain technology comes in.

Not only can users see within 10 minutes what they have generated, but they can also be 100% sure the data is accurate.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — —

To find out more visit Rowan Energy — RowanEnergy.com

Rowan Rewards: RowanEnergyRewards

Blockchains for a long time have had some missing links to enable normal users to take advantage of their full potential.

Baselayer solutions which require advanced technical knowledge to access.

Solutions which require you to go out, buy, configure then run complex custom hardware.

��‍♂️ Confusing user interfaces designed for early adopters.

All these things have slowed down adoption.

We wanted a complete solution where normal people, with zero knowledge of blockchain, could take the service & use it long term for real benefits.

�� The Rowan Smart Miner is a key piece of the solution.

It is easy, it is low powered &, most importantly it requires no knowledge from the user of how it does what it does.

They never need to see a line of code, do any configuration, or even know that a blockchain is involved.

�� All they have to do is connect it & then they get access to the benefits of the solution.

In many ways, it is about removing the word blockchain from the equation altogether, & offering them a solution which anyone generating their own green energy can use.