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Swarm – Low cost, global satellite connectivity for IoT

swarm.space

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Re: Swarm – Low cost, global satellite connectivity for IoT

#31
post #12

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

What might somebody (or some company) use this for? 192 bytes * 750 packets = 144000 bytes per month at what speed/latency?

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.

Re: Swarm – Low cost, global satellite connectivity for IoT

#32
post #12

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

What might somebody (or some company) use this for? 192 bytes * 750 packets = 144000 bytes per month at what speed/latency?

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.

Re: Swarm – Low cost, global satellite connectivity for IoT

#33
post #12

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

What might somebody (or some company) use this for? 192 bytes * 750 packets = 144000 bytes per month at what speed/latency?

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!

Re: Swarm – Low cost, global satellite connectivity for IoT

#34
post #12

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

There's also a sparkfun dev board linked from that page which is around $150. It mentions that if ordering less than 25

Re: Swarm – Low cost, global satellite connectivity for IoT

#35
post #28
post #12

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

Curious how it compares to Iridium, I've seen those with Sparkfun

I don't have numbers in front of me but it looks waaay cheaper. Seems they are trying to undercut Iridium SBD on price.

Re: Swarm – Low cost, global satellite connectivity for IoT

#38
post #12

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

What might somebody (or some company) use this for? 192 bytes * 750 packets = 144000 bytes per month at what speed/latency?

It's a perfect fit for the Yo app.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yo_(app)

Re: Swarm – Low cost, global satellite connectivity for IoT

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With numbers like that, this seems completely useless except for all but the most wildly specific of applications

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.

Critical applications that are only sending one data point per hour. It's limited to 750 packets per month.
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