Hubble network (Bluetooth!?)

[mspohr]

The result is a radio signal that can be detected around 1,000 kilometers away — or almost 10 orders of magnitude longer than what can be detected from a Bluetooth chip over terrestrial networks.

Here is an interesting project. These people want to connect a billion existing (and new) Bluetooth devices to satellites! They plan to launch their first 4 satellites (via SpaceX, of course).
Seems like a stretch but they think it could work.

The company’s aim is to build out a constellation of 300 satellites that can provide real-time updates for any sensor or device outfitted with a Bluetooth low energy (BLE) chip. On its website, Hubble proposes use cases that span industries — from child safety to pallet tracking to environmental monitoring. The startup’s ultimate goal is to connect over a billion devices on its network.

The result is a radio signal that can be detected around 1,000 kilometers away — or almost 10 orders of magnitude longer than what can be detected from a Bluetooth chip over terrestrial networks.

 

[Kimmi]

Link?

 

[araxara]

Link?

Hubble Network

Hubble is Starlink for IOT devices. We’re building a global satellite network that any Bluetooth-enabled device can connect to, even without cellular reception. Sign-up for a DevKit today!

hubblenetwork.com

 

[Kimmi]

Thank you.

 

[scaesare]

The result is a radio signal that can be detected around 1,000 kilometers away — or almost 10 orders of magnitude longer than what can be detected from a Bluetooth chip over terrestrial networks.

Here is an interesting project. These people want to connect a billion existing (and new) Bluetooth devices to satellites! They plan to launch their first 4 satellites (via SpaceX, of course).
Seems like a stretch but they think it could work.

The company’s aim is to build out a constellation of 300 satellites that can provide real-time updates for any sensor or device outfitted with a Bluetooth low energy (BLE) chip. On its website, Hubble proposes use cases that span industries — from child safety to pallet tracking to environmental monitoring. The startup’s ultimate goal is to connect over a billion devices on its network.

The result is a radio signal that can be detected around 1,000 kilometers away — or almost 10 orders of magnitude longer than what can be detected from a Bluetooth chip over terrestrial networks.

10 orders of magnitude?

If they are claiming 1,000 Km, doesn't that imply BT range is nominally only .1mm?

If we use a more realistic BT range of 10m, that's more like 5 orders of magnitude.

And what does Bluetooth "over a network" mean?

Incidentally: dumb name to pick for a sat service

 

[mspohr]

10 orders of magnitude?

If they are claiming 1,000 Km, doesn't that imply BT range is nominally only .1mm?

If we use a more realistic BT range of 10m, that's more like 5 orders of magnitude.

And what does Bluetooth "over a network" mean?

Incidentally: dumb name to pick for a sat service

Good catch. More like 5 orders of magnitude.
I think over a network refers to the satellite intermediary rather than a direct connection.
Yes, Hubble is confusing.

 

[bxr140]

New ideas are always fun; new ideas sometimes rely on bending reality, or at least subverting practicality. IOT using unmodified hardware/equipment/frequencies sounds awesome. Implementing it is more harder. Physics is, as they say.

The big issue with satellites is that they're so far away (relative to your wifi or that cell tower or whatever your tooths are blueing to each other), and there's really no way to get around that other than having to send a louder signal or receive through bigger ears. Practically this plays out that there's almost always a compromise on the size of the messages that are exchanged relative to what one might expect from a legacy terrestrial service. (This is why the notion of ubiquitous/global satellite service as a replacement for terrestrial service for anything is simply breaking the laws of physics.).

Presumably their FW supports higher power device transmissions and some streamlined protocol to minimize the ranging impact on signal strength (and doppler complications, which are a pretty big deal)...but its still really hard to imagine you can get there from here without a really hot signal that would presumably interfere with normal terrestrial bluetooth activity.

Throwing all that babble out the window, perhaps the concept is more or less the AirTags/Tile/etc connectivity stack? Can't totally figure out where a satellite comes into play there (unless that one cow in the IOT tracked herd is wearing a starlink-like antenna on its back?) but...

 

[mspohr]

New ideas are always fun; new ideas sometimes rely on bending reality, or at least subverting practicality. IOT using unmodified hardware/equipment/frequencies sounds awesome. Implementing it is more harder. Physics is, as they say.

The big issue with satellites is that they're so far away (relative to your wifi or that cell tower or whatever your tooths are blueing to each other), and there's really no way to get around that other than having to send a louder signal or receive through bigger ears. Practically this plays out that there's almost always a compromise on the size of the messages that are exchanged relative to what one might expect from a legacy terrestrial service. (This is why the notion of ubiquitous/global satellite service as a replacement for terrestrial service for anything is simply breaking the laws of physics.).

Presumably their FW supports higher power device transmissions and some streamlined protocol to minimize the ranging impact on signal strength (and doppler complications, which are a pretty big deal)...but its still really hard to imagine you can get there from here without a really hot signal that would presumably interfere with normal terrestrial bluetooth activity.

Throwing all that babble out the window, perhaps the concept is more or less the AirTags/Tile/etc connectivity stack? Can't totally figure out where a satellite comes into play there (unless that one cow in the IOT tracked herd is wearing a starlink-like antenna on its back?) but...

I agree. It is literally a "far out" idea. They did talk about modifying the Bluetooth protocol to slow down the transmission rate... but still.
They seem to want it to work with standard Bluetooth devices so no cows with antennas on their backs.
It will be interesting to see if it works when they launch their first 4 satellites next year.

 

[scaesare]

Good catch. More like 5 orders of magnitude.
I think over a network refers to the satellite intermediary rather than a direct connection.
Yes, Hubble is confusing.

Probably... but again their are using rather incorrect terminology. Bluetooth is a point-to-point digital protocol over RF. It's not really a network per-se...one endpoint may then take the data it's received over BT from a device and then forward that over a network of some sort... but that's not a BT "network".

And they are comparing their (dubious) RF transmission distance to terrestrial BT performance, so clearly they are talking about the bluetooth RF performance, yet they call it a network.

Kinda weird all around.

 

[scaesare]

New ideas are always fun; new ideas sometimes rely on bending reality, or at least subverting practicality. IOT using unmodified hardware/equipment/frequencies sounds awesome. Implementing it is more harder. Physics is, as they say.

The big issue with satellites is that they're so far away (relative to your wifi or that cell tower or whatever your tooths are blueing to each other), and there's really no way to get around that other than having to send a louder signal or receive through bigger ears. Practically this plays out that there's almost always a compromise on the size of the messages that are exchanged relative to what one might expect from a legacy terrestrial service. (This is why the notion of ubiquitous/global satellite service as a replacement for terrestrial service for anything is simply breaking the laws of physics.).

Presumably their FW supports higher power device transmissions and some streamlined protocol to minimize the ranging impact on signal strength (and doppler complications, which are a pretty big deal)...but its still really hard to imagine you can get there from here without a really hot signal that would presumably interfere with normal terrestrial bluetooth activity.

Throwing all that babble out the window, perhaps the concept is more or less the AirTags/Tile/etc connectivity stack? Can't totally figure out where a satellite comes into play there (unless that one cow in the IOT tracked herd is wearing a starlink-like antenna on its back?) but...

Yeah, and attempting to use sats for cell service, which normally has a transmission range of a couple of kilometers and enough space within the device for an antenna of decent wavelength length (for it's RF band) and battery to support decent transmission power is challenging enough.

BT has a nominal range of the low 10's of meters, have much smaller antennas, and may have battery capacity in the low single-digit watt hours.

Be fascinating if it's practical...