Twilio Super Sim – Public Beta • Hacker News Board

Re: Twilio Super Sim – Public Beta

#31

Post by adriand » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 6:00 PM UTC

I've always thought it would be fun to make experimental hardware devices with this type of technology. An example:

Build a solar-powered device that you stick up in a tree in a forested patch near an urban center where kids go and have bush parties/bonfires/etc. The device would include a text-to-speech synthesizer. It's dormant most of the time, but designed to activate when people are around it at night. As the "admin", you get a notification when it turns on and can receive some low-res video/audio from the scene, and you can send it messages that are read aloud using the TTS synth.

I imagine it would be quite disconcerting if you were smoking pot in the woods and suddenly a voice in the trees started talking to you.

Re: Twilio Super Sim – Public Beta

#32

Post by skrtskrt » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 6:04 PM UTC

Nextgrid wrote: post #10

If you're interested in this space, Hologram does the same thing (and appears to have had a head start compared to Twilio): https://hologram.io

Same with Telnyx:

https://telnyx.com/products/wireless

Re: Twilio Super Sim – Public Beta

#33

Post by ben174 » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 6:10 PM UTC

Any examples of getting one of these plugged into a Pi and having a script listen for SMS events and respond to them?

Re: Twilio Super Sim – Public Beta

#34

Post by robertlagrant » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 6:11 PM UTC

Gamemaster1379 wrote: post #25

cordite wrote: post #6

Viewing this site took 4.5MB with trackers. That's half a dollar of data. Now I understand that IOT stuff would likely have smaller payloads. But that really looks like a great way to rack up costs with a run away program submitting or retrieving data in a bad loop.

Some companies implement IoT by using protocols other than HTTP. For instance, CoAP is one I'm familiar with which can significantly reduce bandwidth consumption.

MQTT is common.

Re: Twilio Super Sim – Public Beta

#35

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 6:12 PM UTC

Nextgrid wrote: post #8

Curious as to how does this compare to "Programmable Wireless" and whether it supports calls and SMS? It's not clear whether it's an evolution of Programmable Wireless or something totally separate. I tend towards the latter because the documentation is separate between both offerings. Last time I tried Programmable Wireless it was very lacking. Calls were not supported on roaming at all (so I couldn't test it as I'm…

[deleted]

Re: Twilio Super Sim – Public Beta

#36

Post by wrkronmiller » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 6:16 PM UTC

throwawaysea wrote: post #29

Apologies if this is a dumb question - can I use this on a person phone for consumer use cases (voice/text/data)?

You would probably rack up hundreds or thousands of dollars per month in data charges.

Re: Twilio Super Sim – Public Beta

#37

Post by dmix » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 6:18 PM UTC

adriand wrote: post #31

I've always thought it would be fun to make experimental hardware devices with this type of technology. An example: Build a solar-powered device that you stick up in a tree in a forested patch near an urban center where kids go and have bush parties/bonfires/etc. The device would include a text-to-speech synthesizer. It's dormant most of the time, but designed to activate when people are around it at night. As the "a…

Call the git repo "moses" or "burning-bush".

Re: Twilio Super Sim – Public Beta

#38

Post by bob12co » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 6:19 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #28

rsync wrote: post #14

No verizon support, unfortunately ... https://www.twilio.com/docs/iot/supersim/available-networks#...

Are there any geo areas where ATT+TMO/Sprint (combined due to merger) isn't at parity with VZ?

I live in a mountainous area, and there is a very large difference. So much so that VZ is basically my only option.

I think what happens is that tower leases in some protected areas can be hard to negotiate, so the cost/benefit ratio gets out of whack for new towers (amongst other issues with power, construction, and RF propagation in remote, mountain areas). Maybe someone with more knowledge can chime in.

Re: Twilio Super Sim – Public Beta

#39

Post by polishdude20 » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 6:20 PM UTC

What's the difference between an SMS command and just sending data? It says they charge 10 cents for a Mb but 5 cents for a data command. Can I just send a command that is less than a Mb and save money?

Re: Twilio Super Sim – Public Beta

#40

Post by toomuchtodo » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 6:22 PM UTC

bob12co wrote: post #38

toomuchtodo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any geo areas where ATT+TMO/Sprint (combined due to merger) isn't at parity with VZ?

I live in a mountainous area, and there is a very large difference. So much so that VZ is basically my only option. I think what happens is that tower leases in some protected areas can be hard to negotiate, so the cost/benefit ratio gets out of whack for new towers (amongst other issues with power, construction, and RF propagation in remote, mountain areas). Maybe someone with more knowledge can chime in.

Towers are typically owned by a REIT (real estate investment trust) or other entity that develops the tower and telco/equipment shelter and then leases out space on the tower to mobile providers (cost is higher to the mobile provider the higher you want to be on the tower).

In some locations, there just isn't any land to site the tower due to regs (national parks comes to mind, nothing except my Iridium hotspot works in parts of the Smokey Mountains), so there are no providers or a single provider who was able to swing a special case on an existing tower (water tower or similar).