October 3, 2024 • 25 mins
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Unlock the future of IoT with insights from Brandon Satrom, the Senior Vice President of Product and Experience at Blues Wireless. In our latest episode, Brandon unveils the pioneering efforts of Blues Wireless to simplify and revolutionize IoT for developers. Discover how their innovative JSON-based API removes the complexities of integrating wireless modules with various technologies, including cellular, Wi-Fi, LoRa, and satellite. Learn how the legacy of their legendary founder Ray Ozzie, a tech visionary behind Lotus 1-2-3 and Microsoft, continues to inspire groundbreaking connectivity solutions. This is your chance to grasp the intricacies of a flexible system that allows developers to seamlessly adapt to an ever-evolving technological landscape.
But that's not all—Brandon delves into the critical aspects of securing IoT connections, sharing Blues Wireless’s strategic use of secure elements and cloud services to maintain data integrity. Explore how their signature note cards and note hubs empower developers by facilitating secure and adaptable communication. We also spotlight the Starnote module, offering a reliable satellite connectivity option that stands strong beside traditional cellular and Wi-Fi. Brandon shares his passion for education, reflecting on the importance of teaching electronics to future generations. Join us for a journey through the cutting-edge innovations of Blues Wireless, and see how they’re helping developers prove product value and ensure long-term success in the vibrant world of IoT.
Discover how technology is reshaping our lives and livelihoods.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey everybody, fascinating chat today as we
dive into the world of IoT andwireless communications, and we
have really a fascinatingcompany, disruptive Innovator in
the space, with a legendaryfounder and CEO.
But let's chat with BrandonBlues.
How are you?
I'm great, evan.
How are you?
Let's chat with Brandon atBlues.
(00:22):
How are you?
I'm great, evan.
How are you?
I'm doing well.
Thanks so much for being here,really intrigued by the amazing
mission and vision at BluesWireless.
Maybe start with introductionsto yourself and your role at
Blues and also what's the bigidea behind.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Blues.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Wireless.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Yeah, great.
So I'm Brandon Satram.
I'm the Senior Vice Presidentof Product and Experience at
Blues.
I have been at Blues for aboutfour and a half years so for
most of our six-year life as acompany and I've been in the IoT
space for over 10 years, soprimarily focused on building
tools for developers to actuallymake all this work, and that
(01:02):
was the genesis of Blues wasexactly that for developers to
actually make all this work.
And that was the genesis ofBlues was exactly that actually
providing developers and productbuilders with a set of tools
and services from hardware tofirmware to software that
actually allow them to build anddeploy connected applications,
connected products.
This is a very difficult spaceto operate in.
Unlike software development,the tooling is behind the times.
(01:26):
There's a lot of complexitywhen you start introducing
hardware into the mix, and sowhat we tried to do at Blues,
and what Ray really started with, was this idea of the trickiest
part of IoT is that middlepiece of connectivity.
When you decide you want totake some disconnected thing
your sensors, your actuators andactually bring that into the
(01:47):
digital realm.
The way that you choose awireless module results in all
these downstream complex aspectsof application development, and
we just wanted to make itsimple.
That's our mission, that's ourgoal, that's our big idea.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Well, it's an incredible mission and one I'm
very simpatico with.
I was at the first BluetoothSIG like 30 plus years ago and
was involved in the first singlechip Bluetooth device design
and of course, we've seen thatintegrate with almost everything
(02:22):
from mobile phones to wearables.
But you're taking this to thenext level.
Talk about your approach, yourparticular technology and how
you're really wireless enablingwith multiple kinds of
technologies and modes ofoperation.
You're really going wide anddeep, including satellite, to
(02:42):
say the least.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yes, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
So we started.
Our first focus was on cellularIoT, making cellular
connectivity simple.
That in and of itself, was achallenging space, because the
state of the art six years agowas that you sourced a plastic
SIM from somebody or youpurchased a module and you
basically started the clock on amonthly data plan.
Started the clock on a monthlydata plan.
(03:06):
You know the way that I like tosay it is.
The early days of cellular IoTwas that the data plans were
like the early days of SMS andtext messages, where you paid
five bucks a month for somelimit of the number of messages.
And so when we first launchedour product in 2020, the note
card, it was a cellular onlymodule that was designed to
provide data and connectivitywith the cost of the hardware so
starting at 49 US dollars andit comes with 500 megabytes of
(03:30):
data and 10 years of cellularservice, and so you can treat
the connectivity as part of yourBOM costs rather than having it
then starting the clock on amonthly plan.
But, more importantly than that, we abstracted away a lot of
the complexity of actuallyprogramming a cellular device.
Anybody that has been in thesoftware world for a long time
(03:51):
would be shocked to realize thatwhen you get into Wi-Fi or
cellular modules, you're pullingout an AT commands module
Annual, circa 1983, basicallyjust to actually talk to these
devices and send packets overthe network.
And so what we built with thenote card, with our hardware
product, is a set of JSON basedAPIs that abstract the
(04:14):
complexity of talking to themodem.
Any programming language, anymicrocontroller that can read
and write strings and configurethe note card by just sending
simple commands to configurewhere the device goes, where its
data goes when it comes online,to configure how often it
synchronizes with the network,where it stores its data, et
(04:36):
cetera.
All of that in a JSON based API.
So the note card you talk to itin JSON, it responds back in
JSON and you don't have to learnany AT commands.
The benefit of taking thatapproach is that, as we then
expanded our portfolio intoWi-Fi and then into LoRa in 2023
and now into Satellite in 2024,is that we provide the same
(04:57):
JSON-based API.
So developers that have workedwith a cellular note card now
have the ability to add LoRainto their portfolio or even add
NTN Satellite into theirproducts as well, using that
same API.
The idea that we have is that wewant to sort of harmonize this
context, this aspect of workingwith radio access technologies,
(05:18):
so you don't have to choose oneat the beginning and then you're
stuck with it for the life ofthe product.
You can choose one, go with itand then, when a new technology
comes along, like satellite, oreven as cellular moves from 4G
into 5G and beyond, you have aconsistent way of programming
the connectivity piece of yoursolution.
You can swap in and out as yougo, and we're big believers in
(05:42):
making that, in taking thatsimplicity all the way to the
developer, so that theconnectivity in many cases can
just be an afterthought, like Iknow.
I'm going to connect this thing, but now I have a portfolio of
options, rather than pickingLoRa up front and being stuck
with it, or picking cellular upfront or not being able to
incorporate satellite becauseit's a whole new programming
model.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Fantastic.
And speaking of appealing todevelopers, your founder and CEO
is a renowned developer andsoftware engineer and
entrepreneur.
Of course, for those who maynot be aware, lotus 1-2-3, of
course, a tech legend ofMicrosoft, and Groove later on,
(06:23):
and so much more.
What was the original sparkthat got his interest in this
space?
Was it this softwareengineering challenge problem
that he was looking to overcome,or were there any other unique
insights that he brought to thetable back in the day when he
started Blues?
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Yeah, it really it goes back to 2011.
Yeah, it really it goes back to2011.
(07:11):
And shortly after Ray had leftMicrosoft, that formed on the
ground there post 311 calledSafeCast, and that organization
was trying to provide insightinto what was happening with the
meltdown at the facility.
The Japanese government, theutility had their hands full so
they weren't really able toprovide a lot of insight on air
quality, on where the radiationplumes were going, and so they
(07:32):
decided they'd be citizenscientists and they'd build
their own radiation monitoringdevices.
The first version justbasically wrote radiation
readings to an SD card and theydrove around the outskirts of
the exclusion zone.
But then they started workingon the second version of the
product and added connectivityto it, first with LoRa and then
with cellular, and Ray sort ofgot a hands-on exposure to how
(07:56):
difficult it can be to build anembedded product that's
connected, that can be low power, that can actually operate
intelligently and efficiently.
And so over the course of thethree or four years working with
SafeCast, he thought about inhis software developer mindset,
in his engineering mindset thisis complex, and one of Ray's
(08:16):
most famous quotes from back inthe day is complexity kills.
We say that one a lot, becausewhen he sees those kinds of
problems, it's how can I solvethis, how can I actually make
this easier for developers?
And that was the origin ofBlues is really finding a those
kinds of problems.
It's how can I solve this, howcan I actually make this easier
for developers?
And that was the origin ofBlues is really finding a
similar class of problems andfinding those areas where IoT
and connected productdevelopment was complex, and
then, just chipping away at that, finding solutions that
(08:38):
developers could embrace andactually get products out the
door.
So it's a cool story and it's,frankly, one where his ability
to experience it it hands on ledto the genesis of the company.
It wasn't just an idea, butactually feeling the pain and
suffering and then deciding todo something about it.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Wow, what a wonderful anecdote and speaking of which,
I imagine there's just so manydifferent unique use cases and
industries where your technologyis being deployed.
I'm thinking healthcare,agriculture, just top of mind,
must be two big ones.
But maybe describe some of thatwhere you see the most take-up
(09:16):
is and some of the problemsyou're solving.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Yeah, what we're seeing and this is actually
where it's interesting, as we'veseen AI and ML sort of reach a
very interesting favor pitchover the course of the last 18
months is that this need toharness the data that's being
collected by physical goods Ithink is now becoming, you know,
what did we say 20 years ago?
The famous quote is that everycompany is a tech company.
(09:41):
I think we're at this, we're atthis crux where what we're
going to start to see is everycompany needs to become some
sort of an AIML company, and theway that they do so is by
understanding that they havethese physical goods and
products that are reading somuch, collecting so much.
And our state of the art forthe past 20 years to service a
machine or to service a truck ora battery or something along
(10:02):
those lines is to physically goto the place, assess its state
and then, if you have to dosomething, do something, but if
not, you go back to the.
You know the truck goes backhome, to the warehouse.
And so this concept ofscheduling service on truck
rolls, based on you know,theoretical, you know end of
life or needing to service aproduct, we can add the
(10:22):
intelligence of what's actuallyhappening at a point in time,
and in many cases the machine,the device can correct itself,
can fix its own operating modeor it can send an alert to have
somebody come out.
But there are use cases wherethat becomes really, really
evident, and we see things fromrefrigeration.
Cold chain monitoring is animportant one.
We have customers that areoperating in logistics, and
(10:44):
that's especially true when youstart to look at things like
blending cellular and satellitein certain parts of the world,
when you're transitioningbetween geographies or in blue
ocean sorts of use cases, oreven long haul trucking and
monitoring things like not onlyEV batteries but lead acid
batteries on 18 wheelers andthings like that.
So we see a lot of those kindsof use cases where you have this
(11:07):
disconnected thing and itdoesn't need to be a complex
application.
Maybe it's just measuring onething like voltage or humidity
or the temperature inside of acold storage unit and then being
able to send that out to makesure that everything's copacetic
if it is and, if not, to takeaction at a point in time is
where we tend to see a lot ofreally easy early adoption and
quick adoption from customerstrying to operate in the space
(11:30):
and then the massive datathey're collecting gives them
the ability to build betterproducts in the future, to
actually introduce their nextrev of, you know, a connected
battery or a connectedrefrigerator or something along
those lines.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Fantastic.
So, as you know better thananyone in the IoT space,
security has been a majorconcern from the beginning,
really, and today still you getthese products with huge
security issues, security notbeing baked in from the
beginning and default passwords,all kinds of things.
(12:05):
How do you think about security, and you know, especially when
it comes to these large scaledeployments?
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Yeah, that's a great question.
We definitely don't think ofsecurity as an afterthought.
I think, like you put it youput it yourself this way A lot
of in the early days of IoTdevelopment, I think we sort of
thought, well, I'll build thisPOC and then I'll think about
how I'm going to make sure it'ssafe or how I'm going to make
sure it's secure.
I'll put the firmware on hereonce and know that it's good,
but I'll never be able toactually update it remotely or
(12:33):
anything along those lines.
And so what we have built witha note card is this concept of
security enabled by default.
Every note card has a secureelement inside of it.
That secure element has thekeys baked in at the point of
manufacture and as well as theconnection between our hardware
product, the note card, and ourcloud service note hub.
(12:53):
The two are meant to operate asa symbiotic pair.
They don't.
One doesn't exist without theother.
And the advantage of havingthat secure enclave is when the
device wakes up, it knows whereit needs to go, it knows how to
handshake with the cloud service.
We don't do cloud-based keyrotation.
We also don't store keys insideof customer firmware, customer
(13:17):
applications.
That extends, that starts withthe hardware module.
But it also extends to sort ofhow we think about how an
application engineer may need toreach out to third-party
services.
It's very common for a even fora connected product, might have
its main management cloudservice or solution cloud
service, like the NodeHub in ourcase.
But it may be that an embeddeddevice needs to reach out to a
weather API or it needs to getpredicted energy prices so that
(13:38):
it knows how to change itsoperating mode on a given day.
Those third-party APIs again thestate of the art 10 years ago
is well, just go ahead and putthe keys in firmware and no one
will be able to get them, and wealso do not recommend that
approach.
The way that we facilitate thatinteraction is our cloud
service serves as a secure proxyto other third-party APIs.
(13:59):
So customers will set up theybasically will set up on the
cloud side all of thecredentials for that third-party
API the weather service, theenergy service, what have you.
And then when the note cardactually needs to make a request
to that service, it does sowith our cloud service as a
proxy, so it does the handshakethere on that and sends the
(14:19):
response back to the customer.
We actually find that to be areally powerful model, not only
because it's secure, but itallows customers to redirect
requests if they change, if theunderlying API changes, if they
need to redirect to a debuggingservice or logging service.
All that can happen on thecloud side without needing to
recompile firmware or even shipa new firmware binary to them.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Wow, well done.
Sounds pretty well thoughtthrough.
And maybe talk about theprocess of integrating wireless
into products.
Maybe you're a medical devicemanufacturer.
You know of any wirelessexpertise?
Most probably don't.
How long does that process takeand what are the first sort of
(15:02):
one, two, three steps to beginthat journey?
Speaker 2 (15:06):
take and what are the first sort of one, two, three
steps to begin that journey?
Yeah, I think the first stepfor anybody looking at building
a new product is to ask, youknow, to start to think through
what the deployment, what theuse case is, what the deployment
conditions look like.
You know, with a customerbuilding a medical device, it
may very well be that Wi-Fi orBluetooth are the best options
because of the nature of wherethose are being deployed.
In a hospital setting, if it isa remote health care device, we
(15:30):
have one customer that actuallyworks in Puerto Rico and other
areas that you know they like torefer to as the edge of the
Internet, in remote settingsoutside of hospitals, and so
they've got a medical productwhere they have to use cellular,
they have to use wide areanetworking technologies, and so
thinking about the deploymentlocation is a good first step.
And then also thinking throughwhat it's like to design a
(15:54):
product, what the physicaldesign of a product looks like.
And this is an area where, asyou said, evan, a lot of these
customers they know they want toconnect something but they may
not have that wireless expertise, and so typically what we do
with those customers is twothings.
One is we have a fieldengineering team that provides
product design reviews.
We provide guidance andconsulting all the way from
(16:16):
recommending antennas torecommending you know, to
providing feedback on you know,pcb board design and things like
that, as well as a growingpartner network of solution
integrators and solutionproviders that can actually step
in and do that full work, fromhardware design to design for
manufacturing and beyond.
So if a customer knows they havea problem to solve but they
(16:37):
don't have the expertisein-house, we can pair them with
a partner that not only knowsall the complexities of wireless
product development but theyknow how to work with Blues,
they know how to work with ourproducts and integrate those
quickly.
And so, going through thatprocess, many of our customers
are able to get a pilot out thedoor in the span of a couple of
months.
And this is a big challenge inour space is that a lot of
(16:58):
connected product developmentcan take two, three, four years
or more, and this is assumingthe product doesn't get canceled
within the first 18 months.
Years or more, and this isassuming the product doesn't get
canceled within the first 18months.
We have found that everythingthat we can do to help customers
prove that value at a pilotphase within the first three
months sets them up to besuccessful as they go through
the rest of the process andactually get something deployed.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Fantastic approach and talk a little bit about your
new satellite technology,StarNote.
How does that simplify Starlinkintegration and what sort of
potential do you think it opensup globally for you and the
customers?
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Satellite is a really fun area of wireless
connectivity to pay attention toright now because it is
becoming.
Not only are there a lot oforganizations, startups, that
are launching payloads,launching satellites, but
they're actually working withother existing satellite
providers like the Inmarsats,global Stars and others of the
(17:56):
world.
Starnote is a product that wetried to take the same approach
to with satellite that we didwith cellular, which is that we
have a device that bundles someof the costs of connectivity in
the product itself, and soStarnote is a right now.
The current version that wehave is a module that sort of is
an accessory that sitsalongside the note card.
(18:16):
So our note card today we havenote cards that support cellular
, that support cellular andWi-Fi in a single module that
support LoRa and Wi-Fi alone.
Starnode is one that you canadd alongside the note card that
gives you satellite as anadditional fallback, and so one
of the best use cases that wesee now is customers that use
(18:36):
our cellular plus Wi-Fi notecard.
They start with Wi-Fi, theyfail over to cellular and this
gives them that third radioaccess technology to fail over
to.
It's an NTN satellite module,and so we work with our partners
, skylo.
Skylo provides the connectivityand the network backhaul for us
and then ultimately all thatdata ends up in our cloud
(18:57):
service, just like any othernote card.
But we actually bundle 18kilobytes of data with the
product as well.
So with cellular we have 500megabytes of data.
With the note card, withStarnote, with satellite it's 18
kilobytes of data with theproduct as well.
So with cellular we have 500megabytes of data with the note
card, with StarNote.
With satellite it's 18kilobytes.
Obviously we're on much smaller.
The economics of satellite arequite a bit different than
cellular today, but we bundlethat so that customers can
(19:18):
actually use that as a failoverdevice without paying for it.
One of the current realities ofsatellite that we see will
likely change is that there aremany products out there Iridium
is one good example where youpay for the connection whether
you ever send a packet over thenetwork or not, and so we have
customers that are out ofnecessity having to deploy with
(19:40):
satellite with an Iridium modulewhere they're paying $31 a
month just to have access to theconstellation, even if they
don't ever use it, and we thinkthat that's likely to go away
because we want, you knowcustomers when they need
satellite and it needs to becost competitive.
They need something that theycan use when they have to, but
it's not the mainlineconnectivity.
We still see it as failover inmany cases.
(20:02):
But the advantage of Starnotebecause that data is bundled is
that a customer can build anapplication that, maybe over
Wi-Fi or cellular, is sendingdata once an hour, maybe even
every 15 minutes or whatever theuse case might dictate, and
they're sending a lot of datacoming off their sensors.
But if they lose connectivityand fail over to satellite, we
again, with our same JSON-basedAPI, allow them to tune what
(20:26):
gets sent.
So now, instead of sending 200kilobytes worth of data over,
you're sending 50 bytes over.
That just has the heartbeat,just has the most essential
piece of information that youneed.
I think that's a great use casefor satellite today.
At the same time, I think thatas the cost to fire a kilo of
payload up into space comes down, that the cost to send a
(20:49):
kilobyte of data or a packetover the network will come down
as well.
And I really would love to seeit if, in the next three to five
years, satellite becomes amainline way of sending data and
becomes another globallyharmonized connectivity option
alongside a cellular todayharmonized connectivity option
alongside a cellular today.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Well, fantastic opportunities there.
You have a lot going on atBlues, wireless events and
partner events, and meetups,meetings and various get
togethers in the industry.
What are you looking forward tonext?
I know MWC is coming up nextweek for many of us who will be
there, but what else is on yourradar coming up next week for
many of us who will be there?
Speaker 2 (21:26):
but what else is on your radar?
Yeah, I wish I could get to MWCthis year, because
simultaneously, embedded Worldis having their first.
North American edition next year.
Yeah, so we have been sponsors,we have been exhibitors and
attendees at Embedded WorldNuremberg the last couple of
years and it's been a greatevent.
And it's gonna be in Austin, myhometown, next week and we're
(21:47):
not exhibiting there this yearFirst year.
We'll kind of check it out.
Myself and Ray and others onthe team will be there.
But our friends that we havesome friends at a, an
organization called IOT Stars,that do an event on, usually at
MWC and at Embedded World on onenight during the show they're
going to do their first event onTuesday night in Austin as well
, and we'll be there along withother partners and friends of
(22:10):
ours in the space, and we lovethose events because this is the
IoT space is it's about.
What I like to say is risingtides, lift all boats.
We have a lot of opportunitiesto help developers actually be
successful here, and we're in ittogether Even competitors, even
folks selling the same products, so like we can make each other
(22:31):
better and help grow this pie,so people can actually get
things connected, and so that'llbe a fun event and, as well as
you know, all those that we haveplanned for 2025.
Wow.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
So exciting and, yeah , I couldn't pick a better spot
Austin for both partying andeducation so perfect.
And speaking of education, youhave kind of a side hustle or a
personal passion around makingelectronics education more
accessible to kids and families.
You've been involved in thatquite a while.
Tell us about that personalmission.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Yeah, it is one that has been a little bit dormant
lately as I've been quite busywith blues.
But around six years ago or soI, as my kids were a little bit
younger, I got really excitedabout teaching them electronics
I most of my career, 25 years, Iwas a software engineer and
product person, more on thesoftware side of the world, and
(23:22):
I got into tinkering hardware Iand beyond a little over a
decade ago and that was such afun experience for me and my
kids were young enough that Iwas going through and inviting
them into some of that.
I taught my kids to solder,probably before I should have
you know some of those kinds ofthings.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
What could go wrong?
Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Working with my first Arduino devices, raspberry Pi,
all of the usual things that wefind ourselves getting pulled
into and I really wanted toshare some of that with them,
but in a way that was accessiblefor kids.
And so my wife and I started a,an organization, several years
ago called Carrot Pants Studiosthe little tongue in cheek name
but the idea was to provideresources for families to teach
(24:06):
their kids electronics, and wewrote it.
We released a couple of booksthey're actually picture books
that are designed to sort ofeducate kids about how
electronics work through story,and so the, the components on a
bread, on a breadboard areliterally, you know, capacitors,
resistors, nine volt batteries,literally you know, capacitors,
resistors, nine volt batteriesthe kinds of things that kids
(24:27):
would build physically, but thatwe bring that to life through
the story and teach kids how toreally create working circuits
by solving problems.
And it's been a it's been a funexperience that the whole
family has been involved with,and hopefully we'll be able to
find some time to continue moreof that in the future.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
That's great.
Yeah, I used to love as a kidthose you know.
Build your own FM radios, or AMradios, in that case, and a lot
of that's disappeared withdigital and online, so it's
great to see that being keptalive.
Thanks so much, brandon.
Really insightful, intriguingmission and chat and look
forward to catching up.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Thanks, evan, appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Thanks so much and thanks everyone for listening
and watching and check out BluesWireless.
They put out some great contenton their various social feeds.
Thanks,
Hey everybody, fascinating chat today as we
dive into the world of IoT andwireless communications, and we
have really a fascinatingcompany, disruptive Innovator in
the space, with a legendaryfounder and CEO.
But let's chat with BrandonBlues.
How are you?
I'm great, evan.
How are you?
Let's chat with Brandon atBlues.
(00:22):
How are you?
I'm great, evan.
How are you?
I'm doing well.
Thanks so much for being here,really intrigued by the amazing
mission and vision at BluesWireless.
Maybe start with introductionsto yourself and your role at
Blues and also what's the bigidea behind.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Blues.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Wireless.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Yeah, great.
So I'm Brandon Satram.
I'm the Senior Vice Presidentof Product and Experience at
Blues.
I have been at Blues for aboutfour and a half years so for
most of our six-year life as acompany and I've been in the IoT
space for over 10 years, soprimarily focused on building
tools for developers to actuallymake all this work, and that
(01:02):
was the genesis of Blues wasexactly that for developers to
actually make all this work.
And that was the genesis ofBlues was exactly that actually
providing developers and productbuilders with a set of tools
and services from hardware tofirmware to software that
actually allow them to build anddeploy connected applications,
connected products.
This is a very difficult spaceto operate in.
Unlike software development,the tooling is behind the times.
(01:26):
There's a lot of complexitywhen you start introducing
hardware into the mix, and sowhat we tried to do at Blues,
and what Ray really started with, was this idea of the trickiest
part of IoT is that middlepiece of connectivity.
When you decide you want totake some disconnected thing
your sensors, your actuators andactually bring that into the
(01:47):
digital realm.
The way that you choose awireless module results in all
these downstream complex aspectsof application development, and
we just wanted to make itsimple.
That's our mission, that's ourgoal, that's our big idea.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Well, it's an incredible mission and one I'm
very simpatico with.
I was at the first BluetoothSIG like 30 plus years ago and
was involved in the first singlechip Bluetooth device design
and of course, we've seen thatintegrate with almost everything
(02:22):
from mobile phones to wearables.
But you're taking this to thenext level.
Talk about your approach, yourparticular technology and how
you're really wireless enablingwith multiple kinds of
technologies and modes ofoperation.
You're really going wide anddeep, including satellite, to
(02:42):
say the least.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yes, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
So we started.
Our first focus was on cellularIoT, making cellular
connectivity simple.
That in and of itself, was achallenging space, because the
state of the art six years agowas that you sourced a plastic
SIM from somebody or youpurchased a module and you
basically started the clock on amonthly data plan.
Started the clock on a monthlydata plan.
(03:06):
You know the way that I like tosay it is.
The early days of cellular IoTwas that the data plans were
like the early days of SMS andtext messages, where you paid
five bucks a month for somelimit of the number of messages.
And so when we first launchedour product in 2020, the note
card, it was a cellular onlymodule that was designed to
provide data and connectivitywith the cost of the hardware so
starting at 49 US dollars andit comes with 500 megabytes of
(03:30):
data and 10 years of cellularservice, and so you can treat
the connectivity as part of yourBOM costs rather than having it
then starting the clock on amonthly plan.
But, more importantly than that, we abstracted away a lot of
the complexity of actuallyprogramming a cellular device.
Anybody that has been in thesoftware world for a long time
(03:51):
would be shocked to realize thatwhen you get into Wi-Fi or
cellular modules, you're pullingout an AT commands module
Annual, circa 1983, basicallyjust to actually talk to these
devices and send packets overthe network.
And so what we built with thenote card, with our hardware
product, is a set of JSON basedAPIs that abstract the
(04:14):
complexity of talking to themodem.
Any programming language, anymicrocontroller that can read
and write strings and configurethe note card by just sending
simple commands to configurewhere the device goes, where its
data goes when it comes online,to configure how often it
synchronizes with the network,where it stores its data, et
(04:36):
cetera.
All of that in a JSON based API.
So the note card you talk to itin JSON, it responds back in
JSON and you don't have to learnany AT commands.
The benefit of taking thatapproach is that, as we then
expanded our portfolio intoWi-Fi and then into LoRa in 2023
and now into Satellite in 2024,is that we provide the same
(04:57):
JSON-based API.
So developers that have workedwith a cellular note card now
have the ability to add LoRainto their portfolio or even add
NTN Satellite into theirproducts as well, using that
same API.
The idea that we have is that wewant to sort of harmonize this
context, this aspect of workingwith radio access technologies,
(05:18):
so you don't have to choose oneat the beginning and then you're
stuck with it for the life ofthe product.
You can choose one, go with itand then, when a new technology
comes along, like satellite, oreven as cellular moves from 4G
into 5G and beyond, you have aconsistent way of programming
the connectivity piece of yoursolution.
You can swap in and out as yougo, and we're big believers in
(05:42):
making that, in taking thatsimplicity all the way to the
developer, so that theconnectivity in many cases can
just be an afterthought, like Iknow.
I'm going to connect this thing, but now I have a portfolio of
options, rather than pickingLoRa up front and being stuck
with it, or picking cellular upfront or not being able to
incorporate satellite becauseit's a whole new programming
model.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Fantastic.
And speaking of appealing todevelopers, your founder and CEO
is a renowned developer andsoftware engineer and
entrepreneur.
Of course, for those who maynot be aware, lotus 1-2-3, of
course, a tech legend ofMicrosoft, and Groove later on,
(06:23):
and so much more.
What was the original sparkthat got his interest in this
space?
Was it this softwareengineering challenge problem
that he was looking to overcome,or were there any other unique
insights that he brought to thetable back in the day when he
started Blues?
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Yeah, it really it goes back to 2011.
Yeah, it really it goes back to2011.
(07:11):
And shortly after Ray had leftMicrosoft, that formed on the
ground there post 311 calledSafeCast, and that organization
was trying to provide insightinto what was happening with the
meltdown at the facility.
The Japanese government, theutility had their hands full so
they weren't really able toprovide a lot of insight on air
quality, on where the radiationplumes were going, and so they
(07:32):
decided they'd be citizenscientists and they'd build
their own radiation monitoringdevices.
The first version justbasically wrote radiation
readings to an SD card and theydrove around the outskirts of
the exclusion zone.
But then they started workingon the second version of the
product and added connectivityto it, first with LoRa and then
with cellular, and Ray sort ofgot a hands-on exposure to how
(07:56):
difficult it can be to build anembedded product that's
connected, that can be low power, that can actually operate
intelligently and efficiently.
And so over the course of thethree or four years working with
SafeCast, he thought about inhis software developer mindset,
in his engineering mindset thisis complex, and one of Ray's
(08:16):
most famous quotes from back inthe day is complexity kills.
We say that one a lot, becausewhen he sees those kinds of
problems, it's how can I solvethis, how can I actually make
this easier for developers?
And that was the origin ofBlues is really finding a those
kinds of problems.
It's how can I solve this, howcan I actually make this easier
for developers?
And that was the origin ofBlues is really finding a
similar class of problems andfinding those areas where IoT
and connected productdevelopment was complex, and
then, just chipping away at that, finding solutions that
(08:38):
developers could embrace andactually get products out the
door.
So it's a cool story and it's,frankly, one where his ability
to experience it it hands on ledto the genesis of the company.
It wasn't just an idea, butactually feeling the pain and
suffering and then deciding todo something about it.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Wow, what a wonderful anecdote and speaking of which,
I imagine there's just so manydifferent unique use cases and
industries where your technologyis being deployed.
I'm thinking healthcare,agriculture, just top of mind,
must be two big ones.
But maybe describe some of thatwhere you see the most take-up
(09:16):
is and some of the problemsyou're solving.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Yeah, what we're seeing and this is actually
where it's interesting, as we'veseen AI and ML sort of reach a
very interesting favor pitchover the course of the last 18
months is that this need toharness the data that's being
collected by physical goods Ithink is now becoming, you know,
what did we say 20 years ago?
The famous quote is that everycompany is a tech company.
(09:41):
I think we're at this, we're atthis crux where what we're
going to start to see is everycompany needs to become some
sort of an AIML company, and theway that they do so is by
understanding that they havethese physical goods and
products that are reading somuch, collecting so much.
And our state of the art forthe past 20 years to service a
machine or to service a truck ora battery or something along
(10:02):
those lines is to physically goto the place, assess its state
and then, if you have to dosomething, do something, but if
not, you go back to the.
You know the truck goes backhome, to the warehouse.
And so this concept ofscheduling service on truck
rolls, based on you know,theoretical, you know end of
life or needing to service aproduct, we can add the
(10:22):
intelligence of what's actuallyhappening at a point in time,
and in many cases the machine,the device can correct itself,
can fix its own operating modeor it can send an alert to have
somebody come out.
But there are use cases wherethat becomes really, really
evident, and we see things fromrefrigeration.
Cold chain monitoring is animportant one.
We have customers that areoperating in logistics, and
(10:44):
that's especially true when youstart to look at things like
blending cellular and satellitein certain parts of the world,
when you're transitioningbetween geographies or in blue
ocean sorts of use cases, oreven long haul trucking and
monitoring things like not onlyEV batteries but lead acid
batteries on 18 wheelers andthings like that.
So we see a lot of those kindsof use cases where you have this
(11:07):
disconnected thing and itdoesn't need to be a complex
application.
Maybe it's just measuring onething like voltage or humidity
or the temperature inside of acold storage unit and then being
able to send that out to makesure that everything's copacetic
if it is and, if not, to takeaction at a point in time is
where we tend to see a lot ofreally easy early adoption and
quick adoption from customerstrying to operate in the space
(11:30):
and then the massive datathey're collecting gives them
the ability to build betterproducts in the future, to
actually introduce their nextrev of, you know, a connected
battery or a connectedrefrigerator or something along
those lines.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Fantastic.
So, as you know better thananyone in the IoT space,
security has been a majorconcern from the beginning,
really, and today still you getthese products with huge
security issues, security notbeing baked in from the
beginning and default passwords,all kinds of things.
(12:05):
How do you think about security, and you know, especially when
it comes to these large scaledeployments?
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Yeah, that's a great question.
We definitely don't think ofsecurity as an afterthought.
I think, like you put it youput it yourself this way A lot
of in the early days of IoTdevelopment, I think we sort of
thought, well, I'll build thisPOC and then I'll think about
how I'm going to make sure it'ssafe or how I'm going to make
sure it's secure.
I'll put the firmware on hereonce and know that it's good,
but I'll never be able toactually update it remotely or
(12:33):
anything along those lines.
And so what we have built witha note card is this concept of
security enabled by default.
Every note card has a secureelement inside of it.
That secure element has thekeys baked in at the point of
manufacture and as well as theconnection between our hardware
product, the note card, and ourcloud service note hub.
(12:53):
The two are meant to operate asa symbiotic pair.
They don't.
One doesn't exist without theother.
And the advantage of havingthat secure enclave is when the
device wakes up, it knows whereit needs to go, it knows how to
handshake with the cloud service.
We don't do cloud-based keyrotation.
We also don't store keys insideof customer firmware, customer
(13:17):
applications.
That extends, that starts withthe hardware module.
But it also extends to sort ofhow we think about how an
application engineer may need toreach out to third-party
services.
It's very common for a even fora connected product, might have
its main management cloudservice or solution cloud
service, like the NodeHub in ourcase.
But it may be that an embeddeddevice needs to reach out to a
weather API or it needs to getpredicted energy prices so that
(13:38):
it knows how to change itsoperating mode on a given day.
Those third-party APIs again thestate of the art 10 years ago
is well, just go ahead and putthe keys in firmware and no one
will be able to get them, and wealso do not recommend that
approach.
The way that we facilitate thatinteraction is our cloud
service serves as a secure proxyto other third-party APIs.
(13:59):
So customers will set up theybasically will set up on the
cloud side all of thecredentials for that third-party
API the weather service, theenergy service, what have you.
And then when the note cardactually needs to make a request
to that service, it does sowith our cloud service as a
proxy, so it does the handshakethere on that and sends the
(14:19):
response back to the customer.
We actually find that to be areally powerful model, not only
because it's secure, but itallows customers to redirect
requests if they change, if theunderlying API changes, if they
need to redirect to a debuggingservice or logging service.
All that can happen on thecloud side without needing to
recompile firmware or even shipa new firmware binary to them.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Wow, well done.
Sounds pretty well thoughtthrough.
And maybe talk about theprocess of integrating wireless
into products.
Maybe you're a medical devicemanufacturer.
You know of any wirelessexpertise?
Most probably don't.
How long does that process takeand what are the first sort of
(15:02):
one, two, three steps to beginthat journey?
Speaker 2 (15:06):
take and what are the first sort of one, two, three
steps to begin that journey?
Yeah, I think the first stepfor anybody looking at building
a new product is to ask, youknow, to start to think through
what the deployment, what theuse case is, what the deployment
conditions look like.
You know, with a customerbuilding a medical device, it
may very well be that Wi-Fi orBluetooth are the best options
because of the nature of wherethose are being deployed.
In a hospital setting, if it isa remote health care device, we
(15:30):
have one customer that actuallyworks in Puerto Rico and other
areas that you know they like torefer to as the edge of the
Internet, in remote settingsoutside of hospitals, and so
they've got a medical productwhere they have to use cellular,
they have to use wide areanetworking technologies, and so
thinking about the deploymentlocation is a good first step.
And then also thinking throughwhat it's like to design a
(15:54):
product, what the physicaldesign of a product looks like.
And this is an area where, asyou said, evan, a lot of these
customers they know they want toconnect something but they may
not have that wireless expertise, and so typically what we do
with those customers is twothings.
One is we have a fieldengineering team that provides
product design reviews.
We provide guidance andconsulting all the way from
(16:16):
recommending antennas torecommending you know, to
providing feedback on you know,pcb board design and things like
that, as well as a growingpartner network of solution
integrators and solutionproviders that can actually step
in and do that full work, fromhardware design to design for
manufacturing and beyond.
So if a customer knows they havea problem to solve but they
(16:37):
don't have the expertisein-house, we can pair them with
a partner that not only knowsall the complexities of wireless
product development but theyknow how to work with Blues,
they know how to work with ourproducts and integrate those
quickly.
And so, going through thatprocess, many of our customers
are able to get a pilot out thedoor in the span of a couple of
months.
And this is a big challenge inour space is that a lot of
(16:58):
connected product developmentcan take two, three, four years
or more, and this is assumingthe product doesn't get canceled
within the first 18 months.
Years or more, and this isassuming the product doesn't get
canceled within the first 18months.
We have found that everythingthat we can do to help customers
prove that value at a pilotphase within the first three
months sets them up to besuccessful as they go through
the rest of the process andactually get something deployed.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Fantastic approach and talk a little bit about your
new satellite technology,StarNote.
How does that simplify Starlinkintegration and what sort of
potential do you think it opensup globally for you and the
customers?
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Satellite is a really fun area of wireless
connectivity to pay attention toright now because it is
becoming.
Not only are there a lot oforganizations, startups, that
are launching payloads,launching satellites, but
they're actually working withother existing satellite
providers like the Inmarsats,global Stars and others of the
(17:56):
world.
Starnote is a product that wetried to take the same approach
to with satellite that we didwith cellular, which is that we
have a device that bundles someof the costs of connectivity in
the product itself, and soStarnote is a right now.
The current version that wehave is a module that sort of is
an accessory that sitsalongside the note card.
(18:16):
So our note card today we havenote cards that support cellular
, that support cellular andWi-Fi in a single module that
support LoRa and Wi-Fi alone.
Starnode is one that you canadd alongside the note card that
gives you satellite as anadditional fallback, and so one
of the best use cases that wesee now is customers that use
(18:36):
our cellular plus Wi-Fi notecard.
They start with Wi-Fi, theyfail over to cellular and this
gives them that third radioaccess technology to fail over
to.
It's an NTN satellite module,and so we work with our partners
, skylo.
Skylo provides the connectivityand the network backhaul for us
and then ultimately all thatdata ends up in our cloud
(18:57):
service, just like any othernote card.
But we actually bundle 18kilobytes of data with the
product as well.
So with cellular we have 500megabytes of data.
With the note card, withStarnote, with satellite it's 18
kilobytes of data with theproduct as well.
So with cellular we have 500megabytes of data with the note
card, with StarNote.
With satellite it's 18kilobytes.
Obviously we're on much smaller.
The economics of satellite arequite a bit different than
cellular today, but we bundlethat so that customers can
(19:18):
actually use that as a failoverdevice without paying for it.
One of the current realities ofsatellite that we see will
likely change is that there aremany products out there Iridium
is one good example where youpay for the connection whether
you ever send a packet over thenetwork or not, and so we have
customers that are out ofnecessity having to deploy with
(19:40):
satellite with an Iridium modulewhere they're paying $31 a
month just to have access to theconstellation, even if they
don't ever use it, and we thinkthat that's likely to go away
because we want, you knowcustomers when they need
satellite and it needs to becost competitive.
They need something that theycan use when they have to, but
it's not the mainlineconnectivity.
We still see it as failover inmany cases.
(20:02):
But the advantage of Starnotebecause that data is bundled is
that a customer can build anapplication that, maybe over
Wi-Fi or cellular, is sendingdata once an hour, maybe even
every 15 minutes or whatever theuse case might dictate, and
they're sending a lot of datacoming off their sensors.
But if they lose connectivityand fail over to satellite, we
again, with our same JSON-basedAPI, allow them to tune what
(20:26):
gets sent.
So now, instead of sending 200kilobytes worth of data over,
you're sending 50 bytes over.
That just has the heartbeat,just has the most essential
piece of information that youneed.
I think that's a great use casefor satellite today.
At the same time, I think thatas the cost to fire a kilo of
payload up into space comes down, that the cost to send a
(20:49):
kilobyte of data or a packetover the network will come down
as well.
And I really would love to seeit if, in the next three to five
years, satellite becomes amainline way of sending data and
becomes another globallyharmonized connectivity option
alongside a cellular todayharmonized connectivity option
alongside a cellular today.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Well, fantastic opportunities there.
You have a lot going on atBlues, wireless events and
partner events, and meetups,meetings and various get
togethers in the industry.
What are you looking forward tonext?
I know MWC is coming up nextweek for many of us who will be
there, but what else is on yourradar coming up next week for
many of us who will be there?
Speaker 2 (21:26):
but what else is on your radar?
Yeah, I wish I could get to MWCthis year, because
simultaneously, embedded Worldis having their first.
North American edition next year.
Yeah, so we have been sponsors,we have been exhibitors and
attendees at Embedded WorldNuremberg the last couple of
years and it's been a greatevent.
And it's gonna be in Austin, myhometown, next week and we're
(21:47):
not exhibiting there this yearFirst year.
We'll kind of check it out.
Myself and Ray and others onthe team will be there.
But our friends that we havesome friends at a, an
organization called IOT Stars,that do an event on, usually at
MWC and at Embedded World on onenight during the show they're
going to do their first event onTuesday night in Austin as well
, and we'll be there along withother partners and friends of
(22:10):
ours in the space, and we lovethose events because this is the
IoT space is it's about.
What I like to say is risingtides, lift all boats.
We have a lot of opportunitiesto help developers actually be
successful here, and we're in ittogether Even competitors, even
folks selling the same products, so like we can make each other
(22:31):
better and help grow this pie,so people can actually get
things connected, and so that'llbe a fun event and, as well as
you know, all those that we haveplanned for 2025.
Wow.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
So exciting and, yeah , I couldn't pick a better spot
Austin for both partying andeducation so perfect.
And speaking of education, youhave kind of a side hustle or a
personal passion around makingelectronics education more
accessible to kids and families.
You've been involved in thatquite a while.
Tell us about that personalmission.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Yeah, it is one that has been a little bit dormant
lately as I've been quite busywith blues.
But around six years ago or soI, as my kids were a little bit
younger, I got really excitedabout teaching them electronics
I most of my career, 25 years, Iwas a software engineer and
product person, more on thesoftware side of the world, and
(23:22):
I got into tinkering hardware Iand beyond a little over a
decade ago and that was such afun experience for me and my
kids were young enough that Iwas going through and inviting
them into some of that.
I taught my kids to solder,probably before I should have
you know some of those kinds ofthings.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
What could go wrong?
Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Working with my first Arduino devices, raspberry Pi,
all of the usual things that wefind ourselves getting pulled
into and I really wanted toshare some of that with them,
but in a way that was accessiblefor kids.
And so my wife and I started a,an organization, several years
ago called Carrot Pants Studiosthe little tongue in cheek name
but the idea was to provideresources for families to teach
(24:06):
their kids electronics, and wewrote it.
We released a couple of booksthey're actually picture books
that are designed to sort ofeducate kids about how
electronics work through story,and so the, the components on a
bread, on a breadboard areliterally, you know, capacitors,
resistors, nine volt batteries,literally you know, capacitors,
resistors, nine volt batteriesthe kinds of things that kids
(24:27):
would build physically, but thatwe bring that to life through
the story and teach kids how toreally create working circuits
by solving problems.
And it's been a it's been a funexperience that the whole
family has been involved with,and hopefully we'll be able to
find some time to continue moreof that in the future.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
That's great.
Yeah, I used to love as a kidthose you know.
Build your own FM radios, or AMradios, in that case, and a lot
of that's disappeared withdigital and online, so it's
great to see that being keptalive.
Thanks so much, brandon.
Really insightful, intriguingmission and chat and look
forward to catching up.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Thanks, evan, appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Thanks so much and thanks everyone for listening
and watching and check out BluesWireless.
They put out some great contenton their various social feeds.
Thanks,
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