[HN Gopher] Swarm - Low cost, global satellite connectivity for IoT ___________________________________________________________________ Swarm - Low cost, global satellite connectivity for IoT Author : jsmorph Score : 142 points Date : 2022-11-03 18:31 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (swarm.space) (TXT) w3m dump (swarm.space) | differentview97 wrote: | This is not affiliated with SpaceX if I read the site correctly. | | Super-interesting though. | | Edit: Wrong, see below | java-man wrote: | "View Open Positions" link points to SpaceX page | https://www.spacex.com/careers/?search=swarm | xd1936 wrote: | SpaceX purchased them last year. | | https://www.space.com/spacex-to-acquire-swarm- | technologies-s... | kasperni wrote: | It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of SpaceX [1]. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarm_Technologies | jcims wrote: | I can't get to their documentation but it looks like it's using | LoRa for the RF. | | https://blog.semtech.com/satellite-iot-qa-with-swarm | | Pretty cool. Just checked coverage over my house using their pass | checker and it's already ~50% coverage through the course of the | day. No good for realtime alerting but good enough for daily | reporting. | googlryas wrote: | Yep, it seems like you get a transmit window every ~2 hours | max. All in all this service is much more | reasonable(cost/antenna size/transmit rate/power) than I | expected. You can basically send 2kb/day from a large chunk of | the world(with a view of the sky) for $5/mo. Somehow even | cheaper than m2m cell plans I've encountered, though granted I | haven't looked at services in the past few years. | delabay wrote: | Helium has a competitive Lora network at 100x less cost, in | western Europe and US. | | _Ducks_ | byw wrote: | Looks like their documentation site is down. Any idea what kind | of bandwidth we're talking about here? | ttul wrote: | 1 kbps | gnarbarian wrote: | are you sure? | jobigoud wrote: | Roughly 0.44 bits/s. Data is 750 packets of 192 bytes per month | on the $5 plan. | stefan_ wrote: | And what latency. "Webhooks" and "REST API" isn't exactly | screaming useful duplex communication channel. | initplus wrote: | High. At least if it's anything like Iridium, probably | seconds to minutes depending on coverage. Really not designed | to be used like general purpose networking. | csmarshall wrote: | So this is a division of spacex? Since that's where there | "careers" page goes right. | alsodumb wrote: | SpaceX acquired them last year. | notfried wrote: | I love how they define "activation date" for the data plan! | | > The hardware will be charged upfront but the subscription data | plan will not be charged until the device is activated. The | activation date (and $60/yr billing date) for a device is the | first of the following month once >=50 messages are sent. For | example, if your device sends its >=50th message on April 8th, | your device would be charged on May 1st. And would renew annually | on May 1st until you opt-out. | exhilaration wrote: | So 50 messages for testing and calibration before they charge | you? I wish all wireless providers were this nice. | [deleted] | notfish wrote: | SpaceX acquired swarm in 2021: | https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/08/09/spa... | SideburnsOfDoom wrote: | Unrelated to Bruce Sterling's Space Swarm | https://readerslibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/Swarm.pdf | H1Supreme wrote: | What does the data collection end of this look like? In a home | IOT setup, for example, you'd typically have a single machine | (Border Router in a Thread setup) collecting all the data from | each node. | | I understand the "field device" -> "satellite" uplink step. But, | what's the next step? Another device just for downlink data would | eat through the data cap in no time. | jcims wrote: | Looks like they have a SaaS product called Hive to poll/push | data from devices to your application. I don't see any | indication of point to point message passing capability but it | may exist. | googlryas wrote: | You get a REST API to to query to get your data. | | Eg GET api.swarm.space/devices/$id/recent | ClumsyPilot wrote: | You dont buy a sattelite terminal yourself , they company has | their own terminal and will make it avaliable to you over an | API | mirashii wrote: | Huh, for some reason, I thought that the FCC would fine and | regulate this company into oblivion after their unauthorized | launch stunt. Looks like that didn't quite happen the way I | expected. | | https://spacenews.com/swarm-ceo-talks-past-mistakes-future-g... | [deleted] | arriu wrote: | Minimum order of 25, so roughly $3725 for one year unless you get | the "eval kit" @ $449. | | USD $5/MO PER DEVICE | | Provides 750 data packets per device per month (up to 192 Bytes | per packet), including up to 60 downlink (2-way) data packets | ge96 wrote: | Curious how it compares to Iridium, I've seen those with | Sparkfun | initplus wrote: | I don't have numbers in front of me but it looks waaay | cheaper. Seems they are trying to undercut Iridium SBD on | price. | I_dev_outdoors wrote: | There's also a sparkfun dev board linked from that page which | is around $150. It mentions that if ordering less than 25 | MuffinFlavored wrote: | What might somebody (or some company) use this for? | | 192 bytes * 750 packets = 144000 bytes per month at what | speed/latency? | _jal wrote: | Security is an obvious use. | | In the normal case, you send a heartbeat once per (interval | calibrated to threat model). Should be plenty of packets left | to encode "send lawyers, guns and money" when necessary. | proee wrote: | How about for check points on an ultra-marathon desert run, | where you are crossing the Sahara. Each check point could | have an RFID reader that gives feedback on the racers. If Bob | doesn't get to the next checkpoint in say 2 hours, you know | he's probably lost. | LeafItAlone wrote: | A good use of IOT is agriculture. At proper cost, having | satellite connected devices across huge sprawling farms would | be extremely useful. There are already solutions, like LoRA, | but these have their own disadvantages. | themgt wrote: | _In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the CIA, lists Swarm | Technologies as one of their startups._ | | I bet the military/intelligence community has all sorts of | ideas! | schleck8 wrote: | Inqtel also funds Anaconda, Mongodb and Gitlab, interesting | LinuxBender wrote: | Not to mention that people could have internet connected | crap without even knowing it. No way to block it using | PiHole, pfsense or other local routers and access points. | jcims wrote: | Given there's mobile service where most people are | spending time, this situation is already much worse with | cellular data b/c of the substantially higher bandwidth | capability. | | eg https://marketplace.att.com/products/att-iot- | dataplans-lte-n... | bredren wrote: | I worked on a project for a carrier focused on monitoring | temperature of seafood (oysters to start) from water to | store. | | They were anticipating some legislation that would require | full auditability of supply chain. | Retric wrote: | Hourly data collection for science like stream gages, | earthquakes, air quality, precipitation, or similar in very | remote areas. | | Sensors along a pipeline etc to monitor remote | infrastructure. | | Texting in remote areas for logging, cattle, forestry | services, etc. | | Redundancy for boats, emergency services etc that may have | primary and secondary communication channels, but still | greatly benefit from the capacity for redundant txt messages. | iwillbenice wrote: | anigbrowl wrote: | It's ideal for asset tracking - you can fit a GPS fix, | timestamp, and accuracy estimate (based on # of satellites | visible) into 12 bytes, which is enough to ping once per | minute and still only use half your allocated bandwidth. If | your asset tags call in every 5 minutes or once per hour lots | of options open up. | | 2 way communications aren't much more demanding because most | of what you need can be done with lookup tables, and there | aren't that many different commands you would need to send to | an asset tag for local scanning. If you want to do person-to- | person, 2 bytes per word is sufficient for a fairly large | vocabulary (especially a tightly specified one like military | brevity codes) - not exactly chatty but sufficient for many | operational/emergency purposes. | [deleted] | jgalt212 wrote: | It's a perfect fit for the Yo app. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yo_(app) | eddsh1994 wrote: | Wait, this is a real app?! | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVoFzu-vH4o | eterevsky wrote: | Weather station or any kind of remote sensor that you want to | keep in some remote area. | reaperducer wrote: | Silence sense and FCC-required logging for a mountaintop | broadcast transmitter. | skykooler wrote: | I could see this being very useful for scientific beacons, | for example to track ocean currents or bird migrations. The | latter currently use cellular connections, but can only track | birds through areas where reception is present. | initplus wrote: | Remote communication in places without cellular connectivity. | Air quality, water quality, remote weather stations, | aviation, industrial applications... Latency anywhere from a | few seconds to minutes. Not used like normal networking, it's | something you build around for very specialized applications. | jcims wrote: | Given the low cost and power requirements of LoRa this could | be fantastic wildlife and natural habitat monitoring. Could | act as a backup emergency contact mechanism for folks that | spend a lot of time away from civilization. | | Hopefully some resellers pop up that let you buy them onesie- | twosie to tinker with. | nwatson wrote: | Unfortunately, command and control for terrorist drone | networks, sending coordinates to low-use credit-card gas | pumps for night-time refills, and coordinates to targets. | Give it ten years. | eternityforest wrote: | Sparkfun has evaluated boards for $149 although they are SparkX | experimental and could go away. | | Could always do a groupgets anyway. | reaperducer wrote: | _Provides 750 data packets per device per month (up to 192 | Bytes per packet)_ | | 144,000 bytes. Almost the capacity as a Commodore 1541 disk | drive. | | 40 years ago it would have been unfathomable that a regular | schmoe could transmit a floppy disk via satellite for just $5. | arriu wrote: | I love this type of tech and want to get in on that sweet | 144,000 bytes of data at 5 per month, but... it's not just 5 | per month, it's a minimum investment of 500 unfortunately. | | Also, not sure where to find a decent Commodore system these | days to utilize this plan :) | moralestapia wrote: | Sure, but 40 years have passed since then and 144K peanuts | for any real world application. | | A quick example, you have a sensor that sends a single metric | every minute. Suppose that you can pack that info (sensor id, | metric type and data) in 32 bytes. You're looking at about | 1.2MB/month of data (8 times your 144K), which will come to | about $40/month. | | Quite expensive for a single data point, but I can imagine | several use cases where that cost can be easily justified. | Leherenn wrote: | I don't think the general use case is once per minute | though, more like once per hour unless something goes | wrong. Something like ensure pipeline pressure is still | nominal for remote parts of the pipeline. | delabay wrote: | Helium charges 0.00001$ per packet (about 24 bytes) using | Lora protocol. | | But it's associated with crypto so people hate it. | | It also undercuts everything by a factor of 100x and is | ubiquitous in US and western Europe. | WJW wrote: | The reason people are skeptical about its long-term | longevity is that the vast majority of the income of the | project is coming from the sale of hotspots, rather than | from paying customers [1]. This means pricing for users | is heavily subsidized by hotspot revenues right now. | Eventually, the hotspot market will be saturated and | prices will have to come up to keep the project afloat; | it remains to be seen how competitive the pricing will be | at that point. | | PS: Saying LORA is "ubiquitous" in the US oversells it | quite a bit. It is quite available in cities but most | rural areas are completely devoid of coverage, see [2]. | | [1] https://cointelegraph.com/news/critique-on- | helium-s-6-5k-mon... | | [2] https://scwcontent.affino.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/ | 031/Sen... | initplus wrote: | For use cases of this product you will be packing much | tighter than this. | | You get terminal identification from the carrier, no need | to waste precious packet space on identifiers. And it's | probably also a waste to encode field names into your | packet - just record fields at the same offset every time. | If 16 bits of precision is enough for you (it likely is) | you can squeeze 16 metrics (or 16 time series recordings of | the same metric) into every packet. | wildzzz wrote: | Up to the minute sensor data for something so remote that | it needs a satellite uplink is either going to be for | something incredibly critical or totally overkill and a | waste of money. With Swarm, you could be waiting up to 2 | hours between passes that last anywhere between 10 and 50 | minutes so it's not like you'll have your data instantly | for large portions of the day. | moralestapia wrote: | Yes, but then IoT usually invokes a sense of (almost) | real-time monitoring of things and lots of packets etc... | | But I get your point, also you can always do a lot of | things to save on bandwidth, like do not send info which | is not interesting (i.e. no point in sending 100s of "no | fire was detected" messages). | | Btw, anyone here knows if there's compression schemes | designed specifically for small data packets? Gzip and | others would be overkill as headers vastly exceed payload | size. Just using raw LZ77 may work but it's 2022 so | there's probably a specific thing for that already. | | Also, what about data that follows a specific format, | like only integer numbers, it would be nice to have an | algorithm that takes a "string" of 32-bit ints and gives | you back a binary buffer with a smaller lossless | representation of it. | eternityforest wrote: | Yeah and that's probably why IoT devs absolutely crank up | the data rate and spew dozens of Bluetooth advertising | packets in the air for no apparent reason, probably | significantly reducing battery life that could have been | 5yrs, for applications that really don't need instant | response. | | Something like msgpack might be able to compress ints to | some degree since it can represent them as smaller data | types. | initplus wrote: | This product is targeted at actual users of "IoT", think | remote monitoring in remote locations. Not "smart | microwave" style IoT. | | Not sure there is any automatic solution for compression | here. If you know your own use case you are in the best | position to choose where to sacrifice accuracy with a | lossy compression scheme. But this relies on | understanding of the accuracy of the input data, possible | ranges of values, importance of accuracy in different | fields etc. Not sure how an automated algorithm could | take these real world constraints into account. | | A clever compression algo can't help you if you try | compress 4 doubles, but in reality you only needed byte | precision on some fixed 0-100% range. | Taniwha wrote: | Yeah but once a minute is overkill for lots of things - | remote river flood warning every 15 minutes, river water | quality once an hour, temp or rain fall once and hour | dmitrygr wrote: | > Suppose that you can pack that info (sensor id, metric | type and data) in 32 bytes | | I suppose you haven't worked with such constraints before, | so that's why you think this needs 32 bytes. In reality, 4 | or 6 will likely do. | | Send diff in metric value if applicable, use variable- | length encoding to not waste bytes. Allocate bits and not | whole ints to things (like metric type). ID is already part | of lower level protocol - the address, so you do not need | it | tspike wrote: | This looks like a fantastic tool for ensuring the obsolescence of | privacy. | shswkna wrote: | This product is not for attaching to people, but things that | you actually want to be tracked. | NoImmatureAdHom wrote: | Well this is terrifying. Pretty soon you'll have to crack open | your appliances to snip the antennas to prevent them from calling | home, rather than just not giving them the wifi password...! | citilife wrote: | You're already carrying around a device that monitors your | location, what you are saying (and audio in the surrounding | area), to some extent how you are moving (gyroscope), your data | ingress and egress patterns and where you share virtually all | your public thoughts (and most private thoughts). | | Some people even connect their watches, which monitor (or will | soon monitor) everything from their heart rate, sleep schedule, | oxygen levels, BMI, etc. | | I frankly don't think it can get much more intrusive. | jlmorton wrote: | While that's true, I have a little bit of faith in Apple and | Google. But how about the $18 humidifier I bought on Amazon? | bagels wrote: | This is already possible with cell connectivity. Many cars have | this now, for instance. Nothing is stopping the telcos from | offering something to compete with this other than in remote | tower-free locations. | kube-system wrote: | People's appliances are almost all within range of cellular | connectivity, which is cheaper and higher bandwidth. | mmazing wrote: | Not likely with those data rates, for better or worse | frenchie4111 wrote: | Data will get cheaper, fast | multiplegeorges wrote: | Is this a new offering released today? | NKosmatos wrote: | Why isn't this mandatory on ALL planes? A simple device like this | (or similar ones) would make real-time tracking of all flights a | reality. | | We'll see many new things and interesting technologies in the | coming years, like this one and also the one in iPhones. | Integer wrote: | ADS-B is mandatory these days, and Aireon [1] has a | constellation of satellite receivers for 24/7 global coverage. | | [1]https://aireon.com/ | initplus wrote: | ADS-B is essentially mandatory nowadays, but it's just a radio | that transmits location to others in the same local area. Get | enough volunteers with receivers spread throughout the world | and you do get real time location tracking of every aircraft. | See https://www.adsbexchange.com/ | pnemonic wrote: | >SpaceX | | Ignored completely. Musk was cool until he opened his mouth all | the way. | panick21_ wrote: | Musk has literally been saying tons of stuff an talking a lot | for 15 years. | krm01 wrote: | Any idea what the speeds are going to be, especially when | compared to connecting IOT devices to a Cellular network? | djmanning wrote: | You can purchase a single breakout board from Sparkfun: | https://www.sparkfun.com/products/19236 | ec109685 wrote: | Surprised dedicated ultra low bandwidth satellites are the way to | go when developing a service like this versus piggybacking on | something like StarLink. | jjtheblunt wrote: | It is SpaceX also, so presumably in some regard piggybacks on | StarLink. | girvo wrote: | No. It was purchased by SpaceX last year, but uses their own | hardware. | panick21_ wrote: | They will defiantly unify this stuff more over time. | jjtheblunt wrote: | No? SpaceX purchased it, so it's theirs now. They may for | instance be using shared ground network hardware and | software post acquisition. Do you have reason to think | otherwise? | jcims wrote: | This was a separate company originally. In this case the RF | protocol is completely different (~140MHz vs 12+GHz) as well so | you'd have to add hardware to the StarLink satellite to support | this (which obv. could be done moving forward) | dsr_ wrote: | Under 150KB per month, $5. | | Under 300KB per month, $10. | | Under 450KB per month, $15. | | Up to 600KB per month, $20. | | Note, that's total number of bytes, not bytes per second. | THENATHE wrote: | With numbers like that, this seems completely useless except | for all but the most wildly specific of applications | panick21_ wrote: | In the past this cost even more. | googlryas wrote: | You aren't going to be streaming video from the Atacama | through this but it is no where near useless. 192 bytes is | actually substantial amount of data depending on what you're | interested in. | idiotsecant wrote: | this is actually really great for applications like tracking, | remote instrumentation, and other services that have a small | amount of relatively important data in hard-to-service or | critical applications which is not _that_ wildly specific. | jobigoud wrote: | Critical applications that are only sending one data point | per hour. It's limited to 750 packets per month. | initplus wrote: | Your hardware can record many datapoints, and bundle them | up together into one packet for transmission in one big | bundle. If you are reading a float off a sensor, you can | get nearly 1 data point per minute, transmitted hourly, | with a very naive implementation. | | Much more with compression specialized to your use case | and clever packet design. | panick21_ wrote: | You can also aggregate some stuff on the sensor and the | send the aggregations. | googlryas wrote: | What do you mean 1 data point? It transmits bytes, not | data points. I could easily stuff 60 temperature and | humidity readings into one hourly 192b packet(ie per- | minute weather data). That's 120 data points, not 1. And | you could easily double that with simple differential | encoding or beyond other compression techniques | kube-system wrote: | It's for global IoT connectivity, just as it says. That is a | very specific application. | [deleted] | peterweyand wrote: | Ultimately what this means is that data transfer speeds will be | faster, yes? (That's a question.) If most internet usage is | direct to satellite and then satellite to endpoint this would | mean that tier one hub networks would no longer be used. So laser | replaces fiber for most of the distance, with a peer to peer | satellite network that would make outages less common. Which | would be both faster and more reliable. The only issue I see is | for there to be an intentional or unintentional satellite debris | event that would be self propagating, but that issue has been | around for a while anyway. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-11-03 23:00 UTC)