Latest news with #AlexHaro
India Today
08-08-2025
- Business
- India Today
Hubble to cover Earth in Bluetooth with new satellites, promises 12-hour global coverage
Hubble, a Seattle-based space startup, has announced plans to blanket the Earth in Bluetooth connectivity to deliver near real-time global tracking for enterprises. The company will expand its satellite-powered Bluetooth network using two new large satellites built by aerospace manufacturer Muon Space. The satellites are scheduled for launch in to a report by TechCrunch, Hubble will use Muon's new satellite platform, called MuSat XL, to support its expanded BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) network. These 500-kilogram-class satellites are being designed to support high-power payloads, high-bandwidth downlinks, and optical crosslinks between satellites. They are expected to offer a 12-hour global revisit time and enhance the network's ability to detect BLE signals at significantly lower power new phased-array receiver developed by Hubble will be installed on these satellites. It is reportedly designed to detect BLE signals 30 times more efficiently than current systems. This improvement according to the company could extend the battery life of tracking tags and sensors used by customers on the ground. The company says its goal is to provide consistent Bluetooth coverage across the globe, including remote and hard-to-reach locations. 'This advanced payload is what enables us to build a true Bluetooth layer around the Earth,' said CEO Alex Haro. 'It's a foundational step toward making satellite connectivity as seamless and ubiquitous as Wi-Fi or cellular.'Hubble first made headlines in 2024 after becoming the first company to establish a Bluetooth connection directly with a satellite. Right now, the startup operates seven satellites in orbit and plans to scale up to a 60-satellite constellation by 2028. The company is also planning to upgrade all of these to the more powerful MuSat XL platform to improve performance and network Muon Space, founded in 2021, is building a manufacturing facility in San Jose, California, with the goal of producing over 500 satellites per year by 2027. The company recently raised $146 million to support this expansion. As Hubble's first announced customer for the MuSat XL platform, the partnership will allow Hubble to focus on building and maintaining its BLE network, while Muon provides the satellite hardware and operations.- Ends
TechCrunch
07-08-2025
- Business
- TechCrunch
Hubble Network plans massive satellite upgrade to create global Bluetooth layer
Hubble Network's satellite-powered Bluetooth network is getting a big upgrade. The Seattle-based startup, which aims to bring to enterprises what Apple's Find My has brought to consumers, has built a powerful new phased-array receiver that will enable what Hubble CEO Alex Haro calls a 'true Bluetooth layer around the Earth.' This advanced payload will fly on two massive new satellites from four-year-old Muon Space, called MuSat XL, which are slated to launch in 2027. The first two MuSat XL spacecraft will deliver a 12-hour global revisit time and detect Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) signals at 30 times lower power than current capabilities, Hubble says. If those numbers pan out, it could materially extend battery life for tracking tags and sensors here on Earth. Those two satellites will form the backbone of Hubble's BLE Finding Network for enterprises in sectors ranging from logistics, infrastructure, and defense. Hubble made history in 2024 when it became the first company to establish a Bluetooth connection directly to a satellite. The startup's proposition is compelling: instead of needing to buy specialized hardware, customers will only need to integrate their devices' chipsets with a piece of firmware to enable connection to the Hubble network. The benefits of the space-based network are massive, Hubble argues: it can provide visibility across the globe, including in remote areas, and offers a developer-friendly way to let companies track assets without building any additional infrastructure. The company currently has seven spacecraft on orbit with a target of having 60 satellites in operation by 2028. The long-term goal is to upgrade the entire constellation to the larger platform buses because of their power and performance upgrades, Haro said. Techcrunch event Tech and VC heavyweights join the Disrupt 2025 agenda Netflix, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Sequoia Capital — just a few of the heavy hitters joining the Disrupt 2025 agenda. They're here to deliver the insights that fuel startup growth and sharpen your edge. Don't miss the 20th anniversary of TechCrunch Disrupt, and a chance to learn from the top voices in tech — grab your ticket now and save up to $675 before prices rise on August 7. Tech and VC heavyweights join the Disrupt 2025 agenda Netflix, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Sequoia Capital — just a few of the heavy hitters joining the Disrupt 2025 agenda. They're here to deliver the insights that fuel startup growth and sharpen your edge. Don't miss the 20th anniversary of TechCrunch Disrupt, and a chance to learn from the top voices in tech — grab your ticket now and save up to $675 before prices rise. San Francisco | REGISTER NOW It's an aggressive schedule, but Haro added that one reason Hubble chose to partner with Muon is the latter's ability to rapidly scale manufacturing to hit this goal, despite being a young company. (A recent $146 million funding round should help.) Gregory Smirin, president of Muon Space, told TechCrunch that the company's San Jose production facility is being built out to support production of over 500 spacecraft per year by 2027. Hubble is the first customer for the 500 kilogram-class MuSat XL satellite platform, which Muon says can provide multi-kilowatt power to payloads, optical crosslinks, high-volume downlink, and 'near real-time' communications for time-sensitive missions. The partnership also signals a bigger push by the company to compete for more lucrative contracts with the Department of Defense. The XL platform 'is a perfect size and capability for SDA Tranche missions,' Smirin said, referring to the Space Development Agency's initiative to build out a missile defense constellation in low Earth orbit. 'XL reflects both the evolution of our technical stack and our growing role in delivering the kind of multi-mission spacecraft that programs like SDA increasingly rely on.' Muon's business model can be thought of as space-as-a-service: the company designs, builds, and operates satellites using a vertically-integrated stack of hardware and software. The stack, called Halo, is meant to open up space access for companies with promising payloads but no interest in building the underlying satellite architecture. In practice, that means Hubble can focus on developing the BLE network while Muon handles the satellite platforms and mission operations.
Geek Wire
16-07-2025
- Business
- Geek Wire
Hubble Network launches Bluetooth satellite system for tracking your devices from orbit
GeekWire's startup coverage documents the Pacific Northwest entrepreneurial scene. Sign up for our weekly startup newsletter , and check out the GeekWire funding tracker and venture capital directory . An artist's conception shows one of Hubble Network's satellites in orbit. (Hubble Network illustration) A Seattle space startup called Hubble Network is unveiling a system that uses satellites and low-power Bluetooth signals to monitor devices and sensors around the globe. The system, known as the Hubble BLE Finding Network, can open the way for applications ranging from locating lost pets to monitoring supply chains and watching out for wildfires, Hubble Network CEO and co-founder Alex Haro said. 'Agriculture, oil and gas, mining, defense … There are all these important verticals and industries where there is need for this very battery- and cost-efficient network that can have global accessibility,' Haro told GeekWire. Hubble's network could be regarded as a low-cost, low-power GPS alternative for Bluetooth devices. Over the past decade, consumers have become familiar with finding services such as Apple's 'Find My' app and Google's 'Find My Device.' Before he helped found Hubble Network in 2021, Haro himself had a hand in creating the Life360 finding service, which makes use of Bluetooth trackers known as Tiles. His current venture literally adds another dimension to the concept, by going up to low Earth orbit. Haro and his fellow co-founders created Hubble Network (which has nothing to do with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope) to get around the limitations of today's most commonly used Bluetooth-based tracking devices. The most obvious limitation has to do with range. 'The reason that you and pretty much everyone else thinks about Bluetooth as being so short-range is, that's really what the Bluetooth protocol was designed for,' Haro said. 'It's meant for high-fidelity audio streaming from your computer to your headphones, and so it's operating at millions of bits per second.' Hubble Network's system turns the dials down on a Bluetooth device's data transmission rate and energy consumption, using a protocol known as Bluetooth Low Energy, or BLE. The company also developed patented technologies for sending messages across distances ranging as far as hundreds of miles — far enough for the messages to be picked up by phased-array antennas on Hubble Network's satellites in space. Haro compared the approach to enunciating a message quietly and carefully, and repeating the message to make sure it's heard correctly, as opposed to shouting the message as loud as possible. 'On top of that, we give your friend hundreds of microphones that are all focusing their spot beams on you,' he said. 'That's what allows it to pick up that directed energy and be able to hear you, even with a lot of other noise happening all around you.' In collaboration with Spire Global, Hubble Network's first two satellites were launched last year, and the Bluetooth space connection was successfully tested just weeks after that initial launch. Now the Hubble Network constellation has grown to seven satellites. (The four newest satellites are nicknamed Lilo and Stitch, Scooby and Shaggy.) The company aims to expand its constellation to 60 satellites by 2028. Hubble Network's business model calls for adding satellite connectivity to existing tracking applications that are offered by other companies — including Life360, which has more than 80 million monthly active users. The Hubble BLE Network can leverage Life360's devices as well as millions of other IoT devices that have embedded BLE chips. Anyone who uses such devices to, say, monitor their supply chains or check up on their crops can sign up to join the network. 'With a simple SDK change on our customers' devices, they can access 100 million gateways, but they also have access to the satellite network,' Haro said. He emphasized that the IoT data is encrypted end-to-end. 'Not even Hubble can tell what our customers' data is,' Haro said. 'It really is owned by our customer. It's the responsibility of our customer to make sure that these products are being used for proper enterprise use cases and not for any forms of harassment or any other bad actors. We're basically acting like a carrier for our customers' devices.' When Haro talks about customers, he's talking about companies that are using — or will be using — Hubble's service to provide low-cost satellite connectivity for their Bluetooth devices. It's up to those companies to decide how their customers will cover the cost of the service, or how they'll account for the cost internally. 'We have a number of customers that are currently in the pilot phase and are converting over to contracted customers,' Haro said. 'So we will have some hopefully fun announcements over the next few months.' Four years into its existence, Hubble Network has about 50 employees, including about 35 in Seattle and a 'big contingent in the Bay Area,' according to Haro. He said the company has officially brought in $30 million in investment so far, highlighted by a $20 million Series A funding round in 2023. The months ahead are likely to bring further developments on the business frontier as well as on the final frontier. In more ways than one, when it comes to Hubble Network's future, watch this space.
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Mikey February Puts on a Clinic at This Mexican Pointbreak
The name Mikey February mentioned in the same sentence as the words 'twin fin' should get everybody excited. I'm pretty sure most surfers do get a little giddy when they hear them all mixed together. 'Even if he's not riding a twin fin, he surfs like someone riding a twin fin. Fast, loose, and on the brink,' Senior Editor Alex Haro once said about watching February on a large day at Supertubos, a wave nobody ever associates with twin fins. Now, if a shaper did decide to design a twin fin for such waves — the kind that are faster, steeper, and larger than what the average Joe grabs their twinny for — they'd probably do so with Mikey February in mind. That's how we got the Twin Pin from Channel Islands, which Britt Merrick crafted with the South African surfer over the course of two years. This clip is an insane collection of bottom turns to barrels to cutties to carves on a dreamlike day in Mexico. It's the kind of stylistic display you could only imagine from Mikey February and a very short list of world class talent. The takeoff is overhead. The barrels are long and reliable. And the crowd looks far from heinous, which is the best part.
