Nodle.io uses Bluetooth to build delay-tolerant IoT networks
The number of Internet of Things (IoT) devices continues to grow at an exponential rate, it’s becoming clear that we also need the right networks to connect these devices to each other and the wider internet. Standard procedure these days is to use either a built-in 3G or 4G card, which makes devices bulky, or a low-power wide area network like LoRa or Sigfox. Nodle.io, which is launching this week, is taking a different approach by using software-based Bluetooth networks that uses the hardware already available in billions of existing IoT devices, combined with smartphones and apps to connect devices.
The company was founded by Micha Benoliel, who previously co-founded Open Garden, a startup that was a finalist in our Disrupt New York 2012 Battlefield competition and that focused on mesh networking for cell phones in areas with very little or no connectivity. Benoliel stepped down as the CEO of Open Garden in early 2016 and then left the company completely at the end of last year. While Open Garden’s emphasis was on phones and the apps that run on them, Nodle.io is squarely focused on IoT. Nodle definitely shares some of its core ideas — especially with how it approaches crowdsourced connectivity — with Open Garden.
The promise of Nodle is that this kind of network will be able to offer bandwidth that is comparable to Sigox and LoRa, but with significantly lower energy needs for the IoT devices themselves. To achieve this, Nodle is betting on a combination of crowdsourcing bandwidth and partnerships. Read more…
