We crushed a significant milestone this week and started to ship Helium Hotspots to customers across the US.

HUGE thank you to everyone who has joined us on this journey by purchasing Hotspots and helping build the world’s first peer-to-peer wireless network.

The team has worked hard to make our vision a reality and worked tirelessly on our blockchain, hardware, firmware, and of course, software, and our apps.

By shipping nationwide, we’re building on the momentum of our launch rollout in Austin back on August 1.

We were thrilled at how quickly the Austin community joined in to build this network, jumping on board and purchasing Hotspots in huge numbers. As of today, there are almost 150 Hotspots online in Austin with more on the way.

Current Austin network. Each number represents a Hotspot providing connectivity and earning tokens for its owner.

Earlier this week, we started to ship our October batch to customers (based on when they placed their orders). This group includes an astonishing 425+ cities representing 88% states all across the US from Seattle to Ft. Lauderdale, Los Angeles to New York City, and many in between. Soon customers will start receiving Hotspots and joining this movement.

The Helium blockchain approach is the first time in history people have worked together to build a new type of wireless network that is owned by them.

Similar to how Airbnb and Lyft completely changed incumbent markets, deploying wireless infrastructure and building a nationwide network within four months is only possible with the support of individuals.

Priming the network

One of the most common questions is how far away can a device be from a Hotspot to connect and transfer data. In other words, what’s the effective range of the network?

We’re continually performing real-world tests under a broad range of conditions to provide insights about the network, including range.

The range is specifically essential for companies who want to track assets. This use case is in high demand as it allows companies to accurately track their fleets (of trucks, scooters, etc.) in real-time without cellular.

At a high level, real-world network testing can be categorized into two major groups:

Hotspots talking to each other: Hotspot peer-to-peer testing to send challenges, validate coverage using Proof-of-Coverage, and electing Hotspots to a consensus group on the blockchain. IoT talking to Hotspots: Transferring data from devices to Hotspots.

Micro mobility tracking in cities and hills

The first group of peer-to-peer tests were conducted mostly internally. We continued the internal tests but expanded to working with customers to demonstrate the range and stability of the network in a wide range of conditions specific to their use cases. The variance included both indoor and outdoor testing.

City scooters

In the early days with just eight Hotspots, we delivered coverage for a vast enough test region of SF to track electric scooters for companies concerned about unit economics.

Logistics & supply chain simulation

In preparation for the San Francisco network launch, next week, we’re constantly testing connectivity between Hotspots and with devices simulating different scenarios like logistics and supply chain.

The video below shows a tracker device (the blue dot) moving toward San Francisco. The purple dots represent Hotspots, and the purple lines represent connectivity between the tracking device and the Hotspots. A Hotspot over 10+ miles away heard the tracker!

Trail rides

In a more recent demonstration, a bike manufacturer that we’re working with wanted to see how the Network performed outdoors in hilly regions. Mountainous topology would make it more difficult for devices to connect compared to flat areas.

Their use case requires tracking bikes not only in urban settings but also in parks and for trail riding. Their need to track bikes riding on mountainous trails presented several challenges, including power and a way to boost the signal to counter the hilly terrain.

We worked with a partner to enable the Hotspot to run on solar power because of the lack of fixed power in the wilderness, set up a mounting stand, and used larger external antennas.

Below is a map created by data from sensors attached on the bikes providing a high fidelity view of the location of the bikes along the 6-mile bike route. After working out the optimal position for the antennas, here are the coverage results.

The People’s Network going forward

The end of the year is rapidly approaching, and we’ll continue focusing on building both sides of the network.

The more wireless coverage the network can provide across the US, the more valuable the network becomes to customers and users of the network.

If you have purchased and deployed a Hotspot, please help us get the word out and recruit your families, friends to participate and join the movement.

Sign up to our referral program, which gives a discount to your friends and helps you earn a free Hotspot. Details here.

For developers, make sure you sign up to Helium for Developers here for early access to the Helium SDK.

Only by working together can we build this network.