The Casa Node is an thrilling product that guarantees plug-n-play performance for these wishing to function each a full Bitcoin node and a Lightning Community Node. The corporate despatched us over two nodes — one for evaluation, and one other for a giveaway. Right here’s our evaluation!
Casa Node’s Design: Easy and Discrete
The Casa Node’s design is easy and comparatively understated. The node is basically a small white field with a purple Casa brand caught on the highest — and that’s about it. Not like a cumbersome or sometimes-atrocious-looking piece of mining tools, Casa’s node is discrete. It should seemingly not be observed by any company chilling in its neighborhood.
As such, it gained’t be probably the most lovely piece of tech in your family, nor will or not it’s the ugliest. In actuality, it ought to mix proper in subsequent to your wi-fi router, do you have to select to position it there — which you in all probability will, because it requires a wired connection.
One explicit design flaw, maybe, is the truth that it’s important to — actually — plug the Casa node into itself. Particularly, the interior arduous drive must be plugged from one facet of the node into an adjoining facet with an included cable. It’s not a sublime answer however was presumably achieved to maintain the node small. Both manner, it’s kinda bizarre.
The machine itself isn’t significantly sturdy. I extremely doubt it will survive a drop out of your hand to the ground — at the least not a number of occasions — however this isn’t precisely one thing I’m prepared to check.
Setting Up The Casa Node: Get Comfy
Establishing the Casa Node was simple — and by “setting up,” I imply plugging it in. Every thing after that was … let’s simply say … not really easy.
For some, computerized detection of the node’s IP deal with might occur. For me, it didn’t, so I needed to uncover it manually with a third-party IP Scanner. The scanner did not detect the IP deal with, so I needed to do some tweaking in my firewall settings till it confirmed up. As soon as I had the node’s IP deal with, typing it into the browser, sadly, yielded no outcomes.
I took the time to eat some lunch and calm my gentle frustration whereas considering contacting buyer help. After I got here again from lunch, nevertheless, the dashboard had loaded itself into my browser.
The following step of the method was fast and painless, requiring writing down a 24-word restoration phrase and setting a password. (Notice that there isn’t any option to reset your password if you happen to neglect it — so that you’d higher not neglect it.)
Then, the ache got here.
The Casa Node and Port Forwarding Issues
After the Casa Node was absolutely synced, which didn’t take that lengthy, the subsequent hair-pulling step got here in organising the Lightning Community and receiving inbound connections for the Bitcoin Full Node.
With out getting too deeply into the small print, the common plug-and-play operate that ought to make Casa Node particular didn’t work in my case — an issue not a lot with Casa, however with my wi-fi router. I’m a reasonably tech-savvy particular person, however my router’s settings offered considerably extra sophisticated setup procedures which rendered Casa’s self-help tips about its web site ineffective.
As a substitute, I known as up a wise pal who, after maybe half an hour, efficiently helped me arrange port forwarding for the node. This opened up incoming connections to by Bitcoin Node whereas additionally opening up the Lightning Community. To be trustworthy, it’s extremely unlikely I might have solved this situation myself earlier than merely giving up.
I’m assured I’m not the one one who has had or may have these points, as evidenced by the variety of sources already devoted to fixing these issues current on the web from each Casa and particular person customers.
Lightning Community Disappointment
Let me preface this part of the evaluation by saying that I’m personally bullish on Bitcoin’s Lightning Community, a second-layer scaling answer. Nonetheless, my expertise with the Casa Node all however confirmed to me that the Lightning Community shouldn’t be prepared for prime time.
Even with a fully-set-up Casa Node, I did not each ship and obtain funds after a number of makes an attempt. I had allotted a wholesome quantity of BTC to the Lightning Community, arrange 10 fee channels utilizing the node’s beneficial Autopilot characteristic, and manually opened channels with numerous different customers on the community. However, I nonetheless maintained an incoming transaction capability of 0.Zero BTC. Much more irritating, not a single fee despatched to my associates and colleagues went by means of.
I’m undecided I’m prepared responsible Casa for this downside, as I consider the fault might lie extra with the Lightning Community’s nonetheless kludgy state. There additionally could possibly be networking points on my facet stopping the sending and receiving of Lightning funds. Both manner, after some weeks with the node, I merely stopped caring.
My node apparently had reciprocal emotions, as each time I checked in on it, it was undiscoverable on my community with an IP scanner and seemed to be offline — even if I repeatedly left it plugged in and by no means shut off my web.
Do I blame Casa for this? Probably not. Do I blame the Lightning Community for this? Probably not. Nonetheless, the straightforward reality stays that I used to be unable to ship a Lightning fee by way of my Casa Node for weeks, following a painfully sophisticated set-up process.
Will everybody have this downside? Actually not. Will many? Sure. Don’t anticipate grandma to be organising her personal Casa Node anytime quickly. Extra realistically, don’t anticipate your native small enterprise proprietor to be organising their very own, both.
Casa Node Overview: Conclusion
The Casa Node is a straightforward and discrete machine for working a Bitcoin full node, which is does fairly effectively. I extremely suggest this machine for anybody seeking to take part within the strengthening of the Bitcoin community by working a full node — there isn’t any less complicated manner to do that, plain and easy.
As a Lightning Community node, I additionally suggest the Casa Node — regardless of my issues with it. Bitcoin’s second-layer scaling answer is a tough idea for the common individual to understand, technically talking, particularly in the event that they don’t have a fairly-deep understanding of Bitcoin itself. Due to this, organising Casa’s machine to efficiently ship and obtain funds is not any simple process, however it’s nearly actually simpler than making an attempt to do it your self by way of different strategies.
In case you’re on the fence about shopping for a Casa Node to run a full node and dabble with the Lightning Community, I say go for it. Or, higher but, enter Bitcoinist’s giveaway and win your self a free Casa Node! (Keep tuned for extra particulars.)
Do you’ve a Casa Node? Did you expertise the identical points as our reviewer, or has your expertise been considerably smoother? Tell us within the feedback beneath!
Full Disclosure: The evaluation unit was offered by Casa for the needs of evaluation. The giveaway unite was additionally offered by the corporate.
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