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Space Network Wireless Networking

Hubble Network Wants To Connect a Billion Devices With Space-Based Bluetooth Network (techcrunch.com) 60

Posted by BeauHD from the bluetooth-on-steroids dept.
Seattle-based startup Hubble Network plans to launch a constellation of 300 satellites to create a global satellite network that any Bluetooth-enabled device can connect to, anywhere in the world. The network aims to provide real-time updates for devices equipped with Bluetooth low energy (BLE) chips, offering connectivity to over a billion devices. TechCrunch reports: Hubble Network CEO Alex Haro says the company has engineered "technical tricks" to make this scale of connectivity possible for the first time, like lowering the bitrate, or the amount of data transferred per second. Hubble has also rethought the design of the satellite antenna. Instead of sticking a single antenna on the side of a satellite bus, the company is using hundreds of antennae per satellite. This means that each satellite can support millions of connected devices. 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.

Hubble Network plans to launch an initial batch of four satellites on SpaceX's Transporter-10 rideshare mission in January 2024, and onboard early pilot customers after. The startup is fully funded through this mission, Haro said, thanks to a $20 million Series A round that closed in March. That round was led by Transpose Platform, with additional participation from 11.2 Capital, Y Combinator, Yes.VC, Convective Capital, Seraphim Space, Type One Ventures, Soma, AVCF5, Space.VC, Jett McCandless, John Kim, Chris Nguyen, Alan Keating and Don Dodge.

After launching four satellites next January, Hubble plans to build out its constellation to 68 satellites total over the next two-and-a-half years. While the first four satellites will provide global coverage on their own, Haro said that it will be about a six-hour gap until devices can update on the ground. Increasing the constellation to 68 birds means that a satellite will be overhead every 15 minutes or so -- an update rate that is sufficient for "the vast majority" of customer use cases, Haro said. While Hubble is clearly targeting existing Bluetooth devices -- of which billions exist all over the world already -- Haro is confident that the company's network will solicit developers to build applications that don't even exist yet.
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Hubble Network Wants To Connect a Billion Devices With Space-Based Bluetooth Network More

Hubble Network Wants To Connect a Billion Devices With Space-Based Bluetooth Network

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  • Uhh, Bluetooth? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by arglebargle_xiv ( 2212710 ) on Thursday June 01, 2023 @03:04AM (#63566511)
    That's the short-range, and predicated on a ton of design decisions based on it being very short-range, protocol, being used to do pretty much the polar opposite of everything it was designed for? That Bluetooth?

    • Well ya know, the other options for global corporate surveillance of mobile devices are already cornered by Google and Apple. That company is simply trying to leverage one of the last remaining technologies that are still available for abuse, however unlikely from a technical standpoint, so they too can grab a share of the surveillance jackpot.

    • BT was designed for short range with short Ack/Nak timeouts. I don’t think it would work without an update of the ground based device software to relax the timeouts.

      • It's not just that, the entire protocol bakes in a lot of assumptions about low latency, fast turnaround, etc (it's been a while since I read the spec so apologies for being a bit vague). There are specific things like security mechanisms based on distance-bounding protocols that are going to immediately detect this as a poorly-executed relay attack and shut down the connection.

        It's still absolutely baffling why they chose Bluetooth of all protocols. My immediate response would be something like LoRaWAN,

        • Re:Uhh, Bluetooth? (Score:4, Informative)

          by Tx ( 96709 ) on Thursday June 01, 2023 @04:30AM (#63566583) Journal

          Their blog says "This revolutionary approach allows any existing device to be retrofitted to transmit data to the Hubble Network with no additional hardware changes". So it sounds like devices will need software/firmware changes to be compatible. So modified Bluetooth.

          It doesn't seem that baffling; their use case is basically taking existing BLE tracking tags and having them communicate with a satellite instead of with a local device, so the easiest path is to use a modification of what the hardware is designed for. If they can make that work, the tags already exist and are cheap, so why not?

          • Ah, so it's not general-purpose Bluetooth comms but just really, really expensive-to-run (due to the satellite comms) Bluetooth tracking tags.

            Which still leaves the question, why? Standard Bluetooth tracking tags are relatively cheap because they freeload off existing devices and comms, but once the comms are in outer space... and what vanishing percentage of the existing Bluetooth tracking-tag market, which isn't so big in the first place, is going to pay for that service?

            • From looking at TFA it looks like they might be trying to use a sub-1Ghz frequency similar to LoRa or DASH7. They appear to be proposing the use of a newer Bluetooth standard as well as newer upcoming hardware transceivers. That might make sense for a low-bandwidth but VERY accessible networking protocol such as LoRaWAN. While I wish very very hard that folks would have jumped on this to create our own large citizen-based WAN, the fear that the government will come rain on you for "transporting" the porn is

          • Re:Uhh, Bluetooth? (Score:4, Informative)

            by YuppieScum ( 1096 ) on Thursday June 01, 2023 @09:56AM (#63567077) Journal

            ...the tags already exist and are cheap, so why not?

            Well, the reason that the tags are cheap is that they're just a BlueTooth transponder with a UUID - they have no GPS or other comms. All the actual work is done by - in the case of AirTags - the vast ecosystem of iDevices that exists.

            When an iDevice detects the proximity of an AirTag via BlueTooth and does the handshake, the iDevice itself reports the AirTag ID along with its own GPS location using its own WiFi/cellular comms.

            Supposing that a platform 1000km up can even do a BlueTooth handshake with an individual tag out of the millions of other 2.4Ghz RF sources in its footprint - and that's a very big suppose - all it can know is that the tag is somewhere in a several hundred kilometer circle below... which would be impressive but not terribly useful

            • Are these bluetooth tags with 6 meter dish antennas ?

              Anyway, perhaps the system can triangulate position using multiple satellites.

              • Anyway, perhaps the system can triangulate position using multiple satellites.

                From the summary:

                "...a satellite will be overhead every 15 minutes or so..."

                So, no triangulation happening with their planned constellation.

    • Yep.
      Does not pass the link budget sniff test.
      B.S.

    • They want to use really low orbits. Better duck.

    • Radio waves don't just stop at some magically specific distance, given line of sight and high gain antenna on one side and its not so weird at all to go from short range to orbital comms. The critical part of course is line of sight, it's not going to work so well for devices inside buildings etc.

      • Re:Uhh, Bluetooth? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Thursday June 01, 2023 @06:57AM (#63566743)

        Radio waves get mixed with more and more noise over distance. At some point they essentially become part of the noise floor and vanish. Directional antennas can do a bit for that, but BLE devices do not have those. Also, BLE maximum transmit power is 10mW. For that even 100m are a stretch in a noisy environment. There is no way you can reach low earth orbit with just 10mW and a regular BLE antenna. You would basically need a radio-astronomy size antenna on the other side, precision targeted on a fast moving satellite.

        The whole thing seems to be bullshit.

        • "You would basically need a radio-astronomy size antenna on the other side, precision targeted on a fast moving satellite" High gain antenna does not a little, but a lot, 30bd gain is 1000X better signal you know. Yeah, you need a pretty big phased array on the sat, but you very much can do it, already has been done with 5g from sat down to regular phone. You can do lora to cubesat without high gain antenna, doing bluetooth with one is definitely doable. Line of sight and high gain antennas change the equa

        • Look up the LoRa world records, the power is not the problem an sich.

          Now BLE isn't really designed for ultra low data rates, but you might be able to do redundant encoding of a much lower bitrate source into the BLE data to get similar performance. From the satellite down is less of a problem, the satellite has a large phased array and can use more power.

          • Congrats. You are the first one who actually understood the real implications of TFA. If you have more time to go into detail about the bandpass involved and why low frequency might be just the thing needed here, folks would benefit.
      • As the other commenter said, signal power and noise. You might even be able to send the signal from the satellite if it has a big enough antenna and enough power, but the smartphone signal be able to go the other way using standard smartphone hardware? I don't think it's possible.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Spec says 100m nominal max range and a maximum (!) transmit power of 10mW for BLE. Also has trouble with any object in the signal path. There is no way this can reach a satellite even in LEO.

      The only thing they could possibly do is data transfer via beacon signals, no handshake, no connection, no back-channel. But software will generally not be set up for this and you could transfer very little anyways.

      Sounds like bullshit to me.

      • Multiprotocol Bridging [semtech.com] is probably part of the answer. One can encapsulate BLE inside of LoRa for some low-bandwidth applications. So, you use LoRa for the great characteristics of the frequency bandpass then you use BLE for the excellent operational device management Bluetooth gets you. However, LoRa is in 902-928 MHz so it goes through clouds, has better attenuation resistance (versus 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz), etc... As you can see in the Semtech article, vendors are already thinking along these lines and produci

    • Even if they have multiple giant antenna on a LEO sat to read all the bluetooth signals, do they have to power to transmit to small devices with bluetooth antennas not designed to get signals from a distance?

      And I also assume it will not work while in a building or underground - at least I don't think the frequencies used by bluetooth(2,45ghz according to google, similar to the 2.4ghz wifi frequency) are capable of much penetration. Especially from a distance of probably over 100km.

    • I was thinking the same thing. How are they going to make a satellite communicate with a cell phone using a protocol and frequency that only works well at a maximum distance of 5 meters between the devices involved? Using melting-pigeons power on the satellite transmitter?
    • Finally something to make Linux WiFi setup look functional.

    • at the moment, I'm having trouble reaching from my lair to the corners of the property with bluetooth.

      But with this, I can just have them each contact one another through satellites!

      now, where did I leave that magic blue fairy dust?

      \

  • I know the satellite telescope isn't the direct source of the name, but who names their satellite company the same as an already existing and very well-know satellite?

    Should someone:
    start a rocket company called SpaceEx?
    start a car company name Fjord?
    maybe a burger company called McDonals?

  • "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"

    So normal bluetooth range is only a bit more than 0.1 millimeters?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rjforster ( 2130 )

      Came here to say the same thing. But then I realised it is 10 orders of magnitude if you round the value to the nearest order of magnitude. Lolz.

    • Always cite your order of magnitude improvements in base2 log instead of base 10 log, you get 300% more for free!

  • 10 orders of magnitude?? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rgbe ( 310525 ) on Thursday June 01, 2023 @03:28AM (#63566537)

    1000 km that is 10 orders of magnitude shorter would be in the order of 0.1 mm. Someone is using wonky math here.

    • Re:10 orders of magnitude?? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Thursday June 01, 2023 @03:39AM (#63566547)

      Details, details. You're a small thinker. This guy is thinking BIG. Hundreds of millions of dollars big, that he's hoping to get bought out for ASAP. He doesn't have time for those unimportant pesky little details, like whether or not he understands the technical details of Bluetooth, or whether this will even work.

      • Thank you for confirming not a damn thing has changed since dot-bomb vaporware.

        Hell, thank you for confirming not a damn thing has changed since P.T. Barnum.

      • Details, details. You're a small thinker. This guy is thinking BIG. Hundreds of millions of dollars big, that he's hoping to get bought out for ASAP. He doesn't have time for those unimportant pesky little details, like whether or not he understands the technical details of Bluetooth, or whether this will even work.

        ironically, the article on the TechCruch website is followed by a link to an article about Theranos founder, Elizabeth Holmes.

    • Being very charitable, let's assume that the reporter fucked up and they were talking signal strength rather than distance. If the normal BT range was 10 meters and the satellite distance as 1000 km, the field strength of the BT signal at the satellite would indeed be about 10^10 weaker. But it's more likely that someone just got things very badly wrong and don't understand numners as the 10^10 figure should raise an eyebrow.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Indeed. BLE range is 100m, 1000km or 1'000'000m is 4 orders of magnitude more.

  • Nothing new here. Just google âoesatellite IoTâ. Other companies are already taking other ISM band physical layers (LoRa for example) and connecting to them from space.

    There are a lot of limitations with this technology, and itâ(TM)s not clear that this has any advantages over multibeam approaches.

    This article is an advertisement for a startup that wants to public via SPAC. Its technology is not particularly novel.

  • Like, why.
    Forget that this sounds like nonsense from a technical perspective. Why, why would they even want to do this? What are you going to do, move your mouse through a satellite? What purpose does this serve? Somehow I get the impression they got $20 million without this question ever coming up.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Like, why.
      Forget that this sounds like nonsense from a technical perspective. Why, why would they even want to do this? What are you going to do, move your mouse through a satellite? What purpose does this serve? Somehow I get the impression they got $20 million without this question ever coming up.

      If you read into the details of what they are actually doing, the most likely purposes jump out in a terrifyingly obvious way.

      The first big detail is that this is ONE WAY - device to satellite.
      There is no satellite to device communications, so no they can't "move your mouse"

      But (presuming it works) they CAN see your mouse signal and determine the difference between your mouse and the other one next door to you.
      This will be able to "see" the splotches of active 2.4ghz signals, and apparently differentiate ou

    • Sensor data, remote controlled gates, tracking objects, lots of things become much simpler and cheaper to do.

  • It will be great... (Score:3)

    by LordHighExecutioner ( 4245243 ) on Thursday June 01, 2023 @04:17AM (#63566567)
    ...to connect via Bluetooth the fragments of the 300 satellites, after that the Kessler syndrome [wikipedia.org] happens.
    • As you say, putting the technical ridiculousness aside, then it could be used for low power tracking of anything on a global scale, even on oceans. Real-Time tracking the movement of goods would be a good use case, as you could quicker identify supply chain issues, and thereby have a better lead time for mitigating actions. But technically their setup will never work.

  • Can't wait (Score:3)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Thursday June 01, 2023 @04:45AM (#63566597)

    8 out of 10 people are apparently mentally unable to link their cellphone to their car, how are they going to do it with 300 satellites?

  • So now your home security network can be hacked from outer space. Or your car can be turned off from orbit while you are driving. Cool.

    Because security costs money and Bluetooth is known for putting security and reliability before cost. Really.

  • Maybe they can use them to control all the bluetooth zombies out there who got their covid vaccine. Which would make as much sense as any other hypothesis put forth. We all know you can't believe everything you hear on the internet. But people were claiming after the shot they were turning up as a bluetooth device. And an undertaker who said dead bodies were showing up on his smartphone, as bluetooth devices. Why else woud they put frickin' bluetooth on the frickin' Hubble Space telescope? This place used t

  • The PAN protocol, that was inherently "more secure" because it only reached a few meters? Then, oops, a dude with a yagi could lift stuff from your phone a block away?
    OK, it is a small area network, really convenient, and we can make it really low power. Security because of short range is a bad idea anyway.
    OOOH! Apple can make it a total coverage network, because every Apple device is a translation node. I can know my ex is in a coffee shop on the other side of the country because I stuck a tag in her gl

  • 1,000 Km is one million meters. 10 orders of magnitude less is 0.1 millimeters. So the author is saying that a Bluetooth chip connected over a terrestrial network reaches only 0.1 mm? I think someone is off by a few zeros, and some important facts: Bluetooth typically operates over the airwaves, as has a average range of about 10 meters.

  • This is nothing but a scam meant to separate idiot VC investors from their cash. This will go nowhere and do nothing. It's pure vaporware.

    • I sometimes work with radios and antennas in my day job. My head hurt reading this article. I'm pretty sure you're right. VCs would do well to have some technical people on staff to sort the wheat from the chaff.

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