Hubble Network Builds Bluetooth Connectivity at Planetary Scale

Hubble Network is building a connectivity layer for a class of physical assets that has historically been too inexpensive, too power-constrained, or too mobile to justify a cellular modem. Its premise is that a Bluetooth Low Energy chip already inside a device can become the radio for a hybrid terrestrial-and-satellite network.

That changes the starting point for an Internet of Things deployment. Instead of designing around a SIM, GPS receiver, cellular module, or dedicated satellite radio, a manufacturer can use a supported Bluetooth chip, Hubble's firmware, and a lightweight software development kit. The device sends compact location or sensor packets to Hubble's terrestrial gateways or, in supported configurations, directly to satellites.

What Hubble Network Does

Hubble Network carries low-bandwidth data for connected products. The platform combines a distributed terrestrial network with a growing low Earth orbit constellation, then exposes the resulting data through a dashboard, webhooks, and a REST API.

The company's developer platform is designed to fit into existing hardware. Hubble provides a modular SDK, reference applications, device provisioning, and support for multiple real-time operating systems. Customer data is encrypted end to end, and the company says it cannot read the encrypted payload.

This is not broadband from a Bluetooth radio. Hubble is focused on compact data such as location, temperature, motion, or equipment status. Its current public plan supports a 13-byte custom payload per packet. That constraint is a feature for use cases where a small signal can answer an expensive operational question: Where is the tool? Did the shipment remain cold? Has the trailer moved? Is the machine still operating?

The Network Behind the Product

Hubble reports more than 100 million terrestrial access points across more than 2,500 cities and roughly 3 million square miles. Those gateways can hear compatible Bluetooth broadcasts in buildings, cities, and transport corridors. Satellites extend the model into oceans, remote worksites, and other places where terrestrial coverage disappears.

The company currently reports six satellites in orbit and plans to expand to 60 by 2030. Hubble says today's satellite path requires a +20 dBm Bluetooth transmission. Its next generation of satellites, planned for 2027, is designed to hear 4 dBm signals and provide location. The distinction matters: Hubble has demonstrated the physics, but its long-term addressable market depends on making the satellite path practical for more low-power devices.

The company also reports more than 500,000 active devices and growth of more than tenfold over the prior year. Those figures are Hubble's own, but they indicate a shift from a laboratory achievement toward a network that manufacturers and operators can evaluate in production.

The Economics of Existing Hardware

The most important part of Hubble's architecture may be what customers do not need to add. A conventional tracker can require a cellular module, SIM management, a GPS receiver, a larger battery, and a recurring carrier relationship. That cost stack makes sense for a truck or shipping container. It often fails for a pallet, tool, package, smart label, or piece of rental equipment.

Hubble is trying to move that threshold. Its current pricing includes a free sandbox, a live-network plan with public per-device rates, and custom enterprise deployments. The company has also opened its SDK and developer documentation so teams can test the network before committing a product roadmap.

If the same Bluetooth radio can cover a warehouse through terrestrial gateways and an ocean route through satellites, connectivity becomes a software and network decision instead of a hardware redesign. That is the strategic wager behind Hubble.

Leadership Built Around Consumer Location, Wireless, and Space

Hubble was founded in 2021 and joined Y Combinator's Winter 2022 batch. Co-founder and CEO Alex Haro previously co-founded Life360, giving the company experience with location products at consumer scale. Co-founder and CTO Ben Wild worked in wireless engineering at Amazon and helped create Amazon Sidewalk. Co-founder and Chief Space Officer John Kim brings the space-systems side of the architecture.

That mix is unusually aligned with the product. Hubble needs device software that hardware teams can adopt, a network that can aggregate signals at large scale, and a space layer that works within severe power and link-budget constraints. It is not enough to win on any one of those dimensions.

Partners Turn a Network Into an Ecosystem

Hubble's partner set shows how it plans to reach the market. A collaboration with Texas Instruments expands support across widely used Bluetooth chips. InPlay and Reelables connect the network to low-cost tags and printable smart labels. Samsara brings Hubble coverage into industrial asset tracking. Muon Space is building the next generation of satellites.

Each relationship removes an adoption barrier. Semiconductor support reduces firmware risk. Device and label partners give customers deployable endpoints. Platform integrations put the data inside an existing operations workflow. Satellite manufacturing expands the geography where the same endpoint can be heard.

Hiring Is a Map of the Next Bottlenecks

Hubble's careers page and current job listings show active hiring across embedded engineering, wireless systems, space systems, developer experience, sales engineering, channel partnerships, lab operations, and workplace operations. Open roles change quickly, but the mix is a useful market signal.

The company is not staffing only for more satellites. It is investing in the developer tooling, chip relationships, field support, and commercial channels required to turn radio coverage into customer deployments. That is where many infrastructure companies discover that a technical breakthrough and a repeatable product are different achievements.

Why Hubble Matters Now

The broader IoT market has long treated connectivity as a tax on each physical object. Cellular works well when the object can support the cost, power draw, and hardware. Bluetooth is inexpensive and ubiquitous, but usually local. Hubble is combining Bluetooth's endpoint economics with a network that aims to make those endpoints visible across facilities, cities, and remote terrain.

The upside is a much larger universe of connected assets. The hard part is operational consistency. Manufacturers will judge Hubble on coverage, power, security, integration effort, data usefulness, and total cost across years, not on a single satellite demonstration.

Hubble Network is compelling because it is attacking that entire stack. If it can make a familiar chip behave like global infrastructure, the next wave of IoT growth may come from ordinary objects that were never economical to connect before.