Somewear Labs enables flexible communications via multiple connectivity technologies

San Francisco-based Somewear Labs is delivering hardware and software solutions designed to let first responders and others leverage multiple forms of connectivity—from satellite to broadband to mesh—to share situational-awareness data in almost any environment without requiring user intervention, according to the company CEO.

Somewear Labs founder and CEO James Kubik said the company’s offerings are powered by “smart routing” software technology that determines the most appropriate use of available connectivity, whether it was broadband—cellular or Wi-Fi—satellite or mesh networking.

“What [smart routing] did was essentially look for the path of least resistance,” Kubik said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “So, when data was sent or was coming into the system, we could see whether that person has a broadband connection or do they not. Do they need to leverage satcomm or some other modality? That’s something that was very, very powerful for us, where we were kind of bridging LTE, Wi-Fi, satcomm—all without the user doing anything.

“Then, enter the mesh radio. It’s another modality that we can look across. [Depending on the situation], maybe it’s more efficient to just send it over mesh, as opposed to sending it over broadband or satcomm.”

This capability is housed in the Somewear Labs Node, a multi-network device that supports both mesh-network and satellite connectivity—an ideal combination for a first responder or other user wanting to share data with other team members when they are outside the coverage footprint of a terrestrial system, Kubik said.

The Node represents an evolution from Somewear Labs’ initial product, the Global Hotspot—a device Kubik calls the Puck—that supports low-bandwidth connectivity via Iridium’s low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite constellation “in a way that really hadn’t been done before,” according to Kubik.

“You could have a full team that was completely disconnected, and you were able to send and receive data back and forth and have complete situational awareness for all of those members, as opposed to a simple Blue Force tracker that’s only giving that situational awareness back to command and control,” he said.

Indeed, the small-form-factor Global Hotspot—it can be carried in a shoulder pocket—supported a significant capability to users in remote locations, but it was limited, Kubik said.

“We recognized that there was some inefficiency in that architecture,” Kubik said. “It was wonderful for getting data from command and control into the field and between disconnected parties out in the field. Think about a wildfire scenario and having people across a ridge—it was really valuable for that.

“However, we were also working with teams that had close proximity, and that’s where this idea of adding in this mesh network was really poignant.”

Kubik said the mesh-networking capability operates on ISM-band frequencies (902-932 MHz in North America) that have propagation characteristics to support notable range for each hop in a mesh network.

“What’s in our marketing materials is 1 kilometer, Node to Node,” Kubik said. “However, in pretty much every condition I’ve ever been in, we’re seeing about 4 times that. In most conditions, I would call it 2 to 4 kilometers.

“But it’s really about what is the most efficient means to pass that data. We are looking to say, ‘If you need to make a couple of hops, that’s still faster than satcomm latency.’ We are about building the intelligence into the network and less about maximizing node-to-node distance.”

This combination of mesh networking and satellite backhaul in the Node device provides the possibility of some elegant solutions in traditionally difficult connectivity environments.

For instance, first responders operating in a remote cave or tunnel—where a satellite signal typically will not work– could create a daisy-chain mesh network of Somewear Labs Nodes to transmit or receive data from inside the tunnel or cave to a location that is visible to a satellite, Kubik said. Then, another Node in the outdoor location can support connectivity to a broader network, he said.

“We call that smart backhaul,” Kubik said. “We’ve actually built that as a feature into the network, where you can set certain people as strategic backhauls—or you could have work dynamically.”

Somewear Labs’ ability to leverage a variety of connectivity methods should be attractive to first-responder and other organizations that value resiliency and flexibility in communications, particularly when compared to deployments that rely on a single satellite backhaul connection, Kubik said.

“As the operation changes, you might be out of range of that [satellite backhaul], or you might have some obstruction to that,” Kubik said. “If that’s your only backhaul, that’s a risk to the operational efficacy.

“Our perspective is: If you have something that is a high-bandwidth backhaul, we’ll prioritize that. If you don’t, then we’ll find another route to [transmit or receive] data. So, it’s really thinking about the dynamic nature of multiple backhauls, as opposed to one fixed backhaul.”

Kubik emphasized the fact that Somewear Labs’ solutions are designed to augment existing primary communications systems, not replace them.

“When you look at a PACE plan, we always market ourselves as not being the ‘P,’” Kubik said. “We say, ‘You’re going to have your primary radios.’ Then, you’re going to think about, ‘What other data do I need regular access to to manage my operations?’

“We want to offload all of that situational-awareness data from your primary radio, to open that up to comms.”

Kubik said that Somewear Labs originally targeted the consumer space, but the company officials decided to change the focus to the critical-communications sectors. Indeed, Somewear Labs’ website cites some of the company’s higher-profile contracts with the U.S. Air Force and the Texas Department of Public Safety, although Kubik notes that interest in the company’s solutions is not limited to U.S. or to the first-responder sector.

“We’ve been all over the world, and we continue to be deployed all over the world,” Kubik said. “We started on the consumer side. Because of that origin, we had a lot of pull from the enterprise side of the market—first with search-and-rescue organizations, then all the way up to the U.S. government federal side.

“We really pivoted the company to focus on teams and supporting teams at scale. With that, a massive focus is the federal law enforcement, DoD, military side of the house and into public safety for state and local [jurisdictions]. That’s where we really focus, but there’s lots of interest outside of that, as well.”