A humble Bluetooth device has successfully connected to a satellite in orbit

[emorphy]

The big picture: Hubble Network has set itself the ambitious goal of creating a global satellite network capable of connecting with any Bluetooth device. It has recently demonstrated that this goal is achievable, despite initial skepticism from many. Moving forward, the company intends to expand its network to enhance both capacity and the frequency of satellite flybys.

Hubble Network recently announced that it has achieved something many believed to be impossible: it established a Bluetooth connection directly to space, making it the first company in history to accomplish this feat. The achievement marks an important step towards realizing the company's ambitious goal of creating a global satellite network accessible to any Bluetooth-enabled device.

Earlier this year, the Seattle-based startup launched its first two satellites into orbit on SpaceX's Transporter-10 rideshare mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base on the central coast of California. Since then, they have successfully received signals from a simple 3.5mm Bluetooth chip over a distance of 600 km.

Despite encountering skepticism, especially considering the challenges Bluetooth devices often face in connecting to nearby devices, Hubble Network has proven its critics wrong. "By demonstrating that we can send signals directly from Bluetooth chips and receive them in space from a distance of 600 km, we've opened up a new realm of possibilities," said Alex Haro, co-founder and CEO of Hubble Network.

According to the company, connecting any off-the-shelf Bluetooth device to Hubble's satellite network via a software update - even without cellular reception - could potentially offer global coverage with 20 times less battery drain and 50 times lower operating costs. Countless applications utilizing existing low-power, low-cost sensors could be developed without the need for additional expensive space-enabled hardware.

Hubble Network reports that it is already collaborating with pilot customers in various sectors, including consumer devices, construction, infrastructure, supply chain, logistics, oil and gas, and defense.

Hubble was founded in 2021 by Haro, co-founder of Life360, along with Ben Wild, founder of Iotera, and aerospace engineer John Kim. When the idea of connecting a Bluetooth chip to a satellite was initially presented to Haro, he dismissed it as crazy, especially considering his previous experience grappling with this very problem while attempting to build a GPS watch for kids. However, cracking this particular challenge eventually became irresistible, particularly as existing terrestrial and satellite networks often fall short, struggling with coverage in remote areas and consuming too much power, not to mention their high operational costs on a global scale.

Almost a year ago, the company closed a $20 million Series A round led by Transpose Platform, providing the necessary capital to launch its first series of satellites and onboard its initial pilot customers.

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A humble Bluetooth device has successfully connected to a satellite in orbit

 

[DubiousFishHook]

Now this is ****ing interesting.

 

[gdavid65]

Well it's not April...

 

[Uncle Al]

Surprised they would use it considering how unsecured Bluetooth is .....

 

[NumberNine]

The little transciever that could.
Chugga chugga choo choo!

 

[Hololight]

Coming from an Amateur Radio background, I'm very skeptical of this (as reported)... While I won't say they were lying about it being a simple commodity type Bluetooth radio, I think there would be no chance of this ever working without a directional antenna. I don't think this could ever be done with the regular Omni directional antenna (usually implemented as just a copper trace on the PCB) that is found in pretty much all devices with Bluetooth built in... (MAYBE in a world that had no other background RF noise, natural or artificial... where you could just possibly get a signal above the noise floor. But omnidirectional RF falls off at something like the cube I seem to recall? Even with nothing in the way but air, 600 KM is FAR at the miniscule RF 'wattages' of a regular BT radio module). So the idea that it would be a simple 'firmware update' to the end device w/Bluetooth is silly...

 

[opckieran]

And yet my earbuds disconnect as soon as I leave the room…

 

[Endymio]

While I won't say they were lying about it being a simple commodity type Bluetooth radio, I think there would be no chance of this ever working without a directional antenna. I don't think this could ever be done with the regular Omni directional antenna (usually implemented as just a copper trace on the PCB) that is found in pretty much all devices with Bluetooth built in..

The company says otherwise. They already have two satellites in orbit, and are planning a Starlink-style constellation of 300+ satellites, capable to connecting to any current Bluetooth device on earth (if its firmware stack is updated, that is.)

I'm a little skeptical myself, but if the satellite has effective phased-array antenna capability and a lot of signal processing power, it's not impossible.

 

[kira setsu]

What they didnt say is that the audio is 15 minutes behind the video

 

[toooooot]

Surprised they would use it considering how unsecured Bluetooth is .....

Should be nice for emergency messaging. I am in _____ location and I need emergency help. No privacy is alright.
This is something governments would buy to integrate into 911. I mean, you need a phone with hardware to use satellites. Apple and Samsung made their phones with this ability. But if you can ask for help from a cheap phone with BT anywhere, I think it would be worth buying for.

 

[hwertz]

What I'm wondering is if they had a bluetooth device just way out in the desert doing this. Given bluetooth uses the 2.4ghz band, which is VERY congested, it does seem difficult for the sat to be able to pick out a bluetooth signal in any location with significant population where you'll have 1000s of wifi networks per channel within even the tightest spot beam antenna, and probably more like 100,000+ given the typical size of a spot beam.

I must admit, in my place, my computer will tether to my phone when it's like 2 rooms away, which is a far higher distance than I would have expected to work (given that I'm doing nothing special with the computer or the phone). The speed tanks at 2 rooms but is actually close to full speed at like a room and a half.

I'm also wondering how long it'll take for this to stay secure? I mean, the 2.4ghz band is completely unlicensed, it seems like there would be little to prevent me from futzing with the bluetooth stack on my computer to try to crack into their satellite network.

This is certainly interesting though! I will note, bluetooth will do up to 3mbps (they made some faster speeds but they are largely uninmplemented), and Bluetooth LE ("Low Energy") tops out at 2mbps (with considerably lower power than classic bluetooth; or, alternately, using the same transmit power to get higher range.)

Now, for ham radio, they will get amazing range using very low power, on signals that are even below the noise floor, by using very low bit rates (like even 1 bit per second or whatever) and advanced signal processing. (GPS satellites, for that matter, have signal strength below the noise floor.) So the problem of extreme interference seems like a big problem; but it's entirely possible you could be in the middle of LA and this system would link right up no problem.

Or, it could be use in the middle of a city IS a big problem; but if they were planning to use it for logistics (I..e. tracking semi trucks, packages, etc.), it would actually be a minor nuisance rather than a real problem; they'd want to track it down the highway and would be less concerned if updates got spotty once it was in the city (either stopped for the night or near it's destination.)

 

[backfrombreak]

Why not consider LORA? open source, high budget, low power.

 

[Endymio]

Why not consider LORA? open source, high budget, low power.

LORA is low data-rate, requires line-of-sight, and, to provide global coverage, would need millions of new receiver towers. This constellation (if it performs as advertised) can cover the entire earth at a much higher data rate -- and do it without the users needing to purchase new hardware.

 

[hwertz]

LORA is low data-rate, requires line-of-sight, and, to provide global coverage, would need millions of new receiver towers -- not to mention This constellation (if it performs as advertised) can cover the entire earth at a much higher data rate -- and do it without the users needing to purchase new hardware.

Well I think they perhaps meant LORA to satellite? But that still would mean (as you say) needing new hardware, rather than being able to use the bluetooth already in so many devices.

 

[backfrombreak]

Well, LORA hardware is quite similar to BT, works at slightly lower freq than BT, albeit at that range, I wonder what the BT data rate would be as well. LORA is omnidirectional as well, not necessarily LOS when pointing to space. LOS is necessary for ground based obstacles.

 

[hwertz]

Well, LORA hardware is quite similar to BT, works at slightly lower freq than BT, albeit at that range, I wonder what the BT data rate would be as well. LORA is omnidirectional as well, not necessarily LOS when pointing to space. LOS is necessary for ground based obstacles.

I must admit I'm curious about how well this'd work as well. LORA was actually designed for high range at low power (unlike Bluetooth), and the band is probably a lot cleaner (I mean, really, the 2.4ghz band is kind of a disaster area).

As for the data rate? Yeah I wondered that too. (Note, these are megabits and kilobits per second, I'm not forgetting to capitalize Mbps and Kbps here...). I can say with my bluetooth tethering between phone and computer, I get like 2mbps when they are near by. When I had the phone 2 rooms away (and was surprised it connected at all) it was doing like 100kbps. I futzed with it (moving the phone around some) to see how low I could go and got it down below 10kbps before it disconnected. (I don't know how MUCH below 10kbps... bluetooth uses small packet size internally, but I was running IP packets... at that speed it was starting to take over 1.5 seconds to send a single 1500 byte IP packet already and things were starting to time out, I didn't futz with tiny packets or anything to see just how slow it was getting.) That's going from an Ubuntu Linux system (bluez bluetooth stack) to an Android phone (... possibly also bluez? I don't know what Android uses for sure.) So a modified stack could likely support some really low speeds to just make sure a small amount of data gets through "eventually".

 

[backfrombreak]

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9187602

An exploration was done into feasibility. The gist I gather is that compensation would have to be made for doppler effect and a directional antenna utilized. Interesting nonetheless. Data transfer rates is the name of the game, else we could use smoke signals to reach a satellite as well.