71–80 of 165 posts
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.
With numbers like that, this seems completely useless except for all but the most wildly specific of applications
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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 us…
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
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...!
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…
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.
Surprised dedicated ultra low bandwidth satellites are the way to go when developing a service like this versus piggybacking on something like StarLink.
It is SpaceX also, so presumably in some regard piggybacks on StarLink.
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...!
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…
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?
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.
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.
With numbers like that, this seems completely useless except for all but the most wildly specific of applications