Conversation
Highlights

How Hubble Network Turned Bluetooth’s Biggest Limitation Into a Satellite Connectivity Business

When Alex Haro’s co-founder Ben Longmier proposed connecting Bluetooth chips to satellites 500 kilometers away, Alex’s response was immediate: “No freaking way. There’s no way that’s possible.”

The skepticism made sense. Bluetooth’s association with short-range connectivity is hardwired into every engineer’s mental model. But Ben had identified a fundamental insight: Bluetooth’s range limitation wasn’t about the protocol itself—it was about how the protocol had been optimized.

Alex had spent years at Life360 confronting this problem directly. As CTO of the family safety app that would eventually IPO in 2019 with over 80 million monthly active users, he explored every possible network solution for connected hardware. “We saw lots of opportunity for compelling hardware devices for our families. Smart collars for pets, GPS watches for kids, fall detectors for elderly parents,” Alex explained in a recent episode of BUILDERS. The market potential was clear—tens of millions of units annually. But existing networks made viable products impossible: “Super short battery life, very bulky, no global coverage, way too expensive.”

Ben’s previous company had been acquired by Amazon, where his protocol became Amazon Sidewalk. The two had been discussing the future of networking for years when Ben proposed the satellite approach. Today, Hubble Network has seven operational satellites and is serving enterprise customers across intermodal logistics, off-grid construction, and outdoor recreation.

The Technical Breakthrough: Optimizing for Different Physics

The innovation wasn’t about increasing Bluetooth’s power—it was about completely rethinking the optimization constraints.

Traditional Bluetooth prioritizes high-bandwidth applications. “The reason that those are such short range technology is they’ve really been focused on how do we solve super high bandwidth transfers, things like audio from your computer to your headphones,” Alex explained. Streaming high-fidelity audio requires millions of bits per second, which demands high power and creates the range limitations everyone experiences.

Hubble’s use cases—location updates, sensor readings, status messages—don’t need high bandwidth. This opened entirely different optimization paths. “We have you talk at lower than Bluetooth levels, we have you talk a lot slower. We lower the bit rate down. That puts a lot more energy into every bit. We change the modulation. We have you repeat yourself or we add error correcting codes.”

The critical infrastructure is satellite-side. Hubble deploys hundreds of antennas performing advanced digital beamforming and signal processing. “We basically create these spot beams that are able to focus and listen into your whisper… as if it is just you and your friend in the room, no matter how many other people or things are kind of in the way.”

This antenna array architecture solves the capacity and interference challenges that plague traditional satellite networks. By creating thousands of individual spot beams, each satellite can simultaneously track multiple devices despite operating at lower power levels.

Converting Technical Skepticism Into Market Validation

The perception challenge created an unusual GTM dynamic. “Even today, I meet people and I tell them I’m working on a satellite that any Bluetooth device can connect to and it still takes them a while to believe me,” Alex said. This wasn’t limited to potential customers—sophisticated RF engineers from Google, Amazon, and Starlink needed convincing despite understanding the physics.

The word association problem proved consequential for fundraising. “Some of the investors that joined our A or B, they passed on our seed and A because they thought, well, I believe in Alex, but is this really physically possible?”

Demonstration became the forcing function. After launching satellites via SpaceX’s rideshare program and demonstrating actual connectivity, the entire conversation shifted. “Now it’s no longer, you have to believe in me. It’s like you can see it and you can touch it and you can use it yourself.” More importantly: “Now companies are paying us money and building on top of it.”

The counterintuitive upside: the “sexy hook of Bluetooth to space” generates significant attention even from skeptics. “The fact that we can get people’s attention with something that feels impossible means that they’re at least paying attention,” Alex noted. The initial “no freaking way” reaction creates engagement that more conventional positioning might not achieve.

Infrastructure Layer Economics: Why Hubble Doesn’t Build Devices

Hubble’s strategic positioning as network infrastructure rather than device manufacturer wasn’t extensively debated. “It’s so hardcore to our ethos,” Alex explained. The decision stemmed from clear unit economics and scale dynamics.

“We’re not focused on building the hardware or devices. We very much view ourselves as a networking company,” Alex stated. Device manufacturers integrate Hubble connectivity with just a software change to their Bluetooth chip, then deploy to their customer bases. “Our strategy has been going into these different verticals and understanding who’s working on the really interesting problems… who have their own customer bases, hopefully hundreds, if not thousands of customers.”

This creates exponential reach. Each B2B customer becomes a distribution multiplier, deploying hundreds or thousands of Hubble-connected devices to their end users across construction sites, shipping containers, or remote equipment.

The positioning extends to pricing strategy. “We really aim to be a developer tool that anyone can use… feeling much more like a Twilio or a Stripe as a company and much less like a carrier, like a Verizon or an AT&T.” Transparent, self-service pricing allows engineers to validate unit economics independently and start free trials without sales conversations. This wasn’t a marketing tactic—it’s operational architecture aligned with their goal of connecting billions of devices.

The Operational Reality of Unlimited TAM

Hubble’s horizontal technology creates viable use cases across construction, oil and gas, mining, agriculture, supply chain, logistics, and defense. For most startups, this would be an enviable position. For Hubble, it creates acute focus challenges.

“There’s so much opportunity for Hubble. It’s very easy to go and try to sell to every possible industry all at once,” Alex acknowledged. The attention-grabbing technology makes this worse—inbound interest comes from multiple verticals simultaneously, each representing legitimate opportunities.

Alex’s experience at Life360 shaped his perspective. “As a young company with relatively few kind of people on the team, every hour matters and being able to focus matters quite a bit and defocusing yourself can really hurt.” The ongoing tension: “How do we build a tool that works for everyone but in terms of our own go to market is very focused on how we’re thinking about ICP, how we’re approaching the market, who we’re targeting.”

The filtration criteria centers on existing distribution and proven use cases. Rather than pursuing every interested prospect, Hubble targets industry leaders already solving important problems with established customer bases. This concentrates go-to-market resources on partners who provide immediate scale rather than one-off deployments requiring extensive hand-holding.

From Operational Failure to Market Insight

The path to Hubble traces directly through Alex’s inability to solve connectivity at Life360. Years spent evaluating every possible network, becoming an investor in alternative networking companies, and repeatedly failing to find viable hardware solutions created proprietary market understanding.

“I spent a lot of my time as the chief technology officer of Life360 digging into every possible network. I even became an investor in a few different companies, including my co-founder of Hubble’s previous company,” Alex explained. This wasn’t theoretical exploration—it was operational necessity blocking tens of millions of potential device sales.

When Ben proposed the satellite approach, Alex had already paid the learning cost that most competitors would need years to acquire. He understood exactly which use cases existing networks couldn’t serve, what price points were viable, and where the market gaps created venture-scale opportunities.

The lesson extends beyond Hubble’s specific trajectory. Operational frustrations in previous roles often reveal infrastructure gaps that others can’t see clearly. The key is recognizing when a persistent problem signals missing infrastructure rather than execution failure.

Scaling Infrastructure for Billions of Devices

Alex’s vision centers on connectivity becoming invisible infrastructure. “One day we won’t even think about connectivity. It’s just going to be assumed that if you build a sensor or device that you’ll be able to get that data,” he explained.

The immediate applications—asset tracking, remote monitoring, environmental sensing—serve as proof points for a broader thesis. “There are all these important problems in the world where access to data is the number one thing holding back innovation. By creating this network that can scale to billions of devices, you can start to unlock a lot of these problems.”

The ambitious goal—connecting billions of devices globally—drives every operational decision, from transparent pricing to infrastructure-layer positioning to developer-first tooling. For now, Hubble continues launching satellites and signing enterprise customers, proving that the impossible is not only technically feasible but commercially viable.