Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Episode
3 of the Blockchain Bay Podcast. My name is Chris,
and today Joe is interviewing BFG Neil, who is
a well -known member in the Helium community.
With his project TrackPack, it aims to give a
real -world use case for the Helium network.
With TrackPack, you can track assets across the
world as long as you are within distance of a
Helium miner. It's a really cool project, and
I hope you guys do enjoy this episode. Welcome
back to another episode. We have special guests
today from across the pond. We're going to do
a two -hour... a two -hour live stream first
we're starting off with bfg neil and then later
on we're going to have some guys from crypto
slate that's the podcast that i did a week ago
they'll be coming on the show to talk about what
they're doing but uh neil let's start it off
with you i think you're a familiar face i think
everyone knows me at this point right hope so
anyway i'm trying to be like that anyway yeah
so thanks for coming on now i I've seen your
post on Twitter about your product that you developed
on the Helium network called TrackPack. Of course,
I have one of my own, which I made a video for,
so thank you for that. I like the product. I
like what you're doing here. You have a lot of
experience in the industry, so just give us a
background on yourself, what you've done as far
as you're a dev, and then you got involved with
Helium, and then why you decided to go forward
with this project. Sure. So, you know, I've been
a developer for a number of years and the last
business that I run was software as a service.
So when I sold that business, I was looking into
the world of what's next, you know, for me. And
I obviously looked at blockchain technology.
I originally built an Ethereum miner following
Voscoin. You know, he was great in the time when
GPU miners were big and it was great advice and
help getting to that point where I could build
a rig. At that time, I heard about helium and
the low -powered nature of it. When you get to
GPU mining, you realize you use so much power
and so much of your profit goes towards the power
usage. Helium sounded like this amazing thing
that was low -powered. It was also solving some
of the problems that Bitcoin has, true decentralization.
It was putting a node in everyone's houses. you
can do that but to earn from doing that you need
to put an asic miner in right and it just doesn't
make sense like i love the idea of a raspberry
pi that could support more than one project and
that's a thing i would love to see in the future
for helium you know support more than one project
on these nodes because we have this global decentralized
network of independent nodes in people's houses
which is perfect but yeah so i um coming to the
healing world and obviously when i get into a
new project i studied the hell out of it so i
started using mappers to um work out how good
my coverage was you know i had some success locally
my first three hot spots were 350 meters 400
meters from each other so they were working pretty
well but then then my friend was two miles up
the road and i was like oh right you know but
i'd love you to get into this project with me
and uh you know i had some difficulties getting
that distance so what i what i then did was like
right look at my setup let's get a mapper uh
let's look at the sigma quality does What does
the difference of a meter in height make? Indoors,
outdoors, cable, antennas, everything got really
deep. And at that time, one thing I noticed was
the relay thing. Hotspots, when they first come
out, you needed to have ports inbound and outbound
for them to work, for them to be able to talk.
And if you didn't have... the ports open, you
would never beacon. So I noticed that Helium
wasn't showing on the site and we started up
a service called Helium Status. And that's where
it showed you the relay and a bit more information
about it. And yeah, at that point, we had like
50 ,000 subscribers. It was quite a big website
and quite a lot of people were using it at the
time. It was definitely the option. Yeah, there
was a lot of features. I remember it. I used
it quite a bit. I told people go there before,
you know, and then we had light hotspots and
all that went away. You didn't really have a
need. Exactly. And it was a great product. Yeah,
I met the other two business partners of TrackPack
at that point as well. Rob is a cloud specialist
and a backend specialist. So we worked as a really
good team and that was our first project. I mean,
for that project, that was the project that I
learned React Native, which is React and React
Native, which is what TrackPack's written in.
So I'd done other programming languages before,
but they're a bit old school PHP and JavaScript
and, you know, it was last world. Here's my first
project with React. There's nothing better than
diving into a project to learn a bit of coding
and the language because you have a goal in mind
and you can build it. That's what Helium Status
was. When they moved to light hotspots, that
was the point where we needed to pivot. What
do we do next? We talked about doing hotspot
firmware. definitely do that in the future if
people are interested um setting up firmware
that enables you to run other projects as well
sort of what cotx is doing but it would be at
a subscription obviously we would need to build
something where we would eat for you know be
able to eat by building it so there would be
a small subscription to it we've talked about
it but we decided at the time um that the most
helpful thing that we could do for the network
was build an app that is so easy to use that
you could actually go to your neighbor and say,
here, track your cat, track your car, track anything.
And they wouldn't have to know about cryptocurrency.
They wouldn't have to know about Helium console
and adding devices and decoders and integrations.
And so with the TrackPack app, you literally
just scan the QR code on the back of a tab. it's
added to your account you start using it so every
tab and every tracker comes with 30 days of free
service as well so you can start using it straight
away as soon as it arrives and and really experience
what the power of the network is you know how
big it is and how good it is which we need more
of, right? That's one thing at the moment. There's
not many companies that are building solutions
like we are and as quick as we are as well. So
what we built was in response to the feedback
from the people, you know, saying, this is too
complex. I need something simple. You know, DataCake,
UberDots, my devices, they're all great systems,
but they do require some knowledge, right? You
need to... implemented to build that kind of
system for you whereas track pack you could literally
just buy one of the trackers and get started
with it and that was that was the aim basically
so it was a bit of education for the network
you know i don't have a background in in asset
tracking i built a business from knowing what
you could do on helium um which is a different
way around for for me the most would do it they
they see the power of the helium network and
how you can do long range low power sensors and
then take their existing systems to build onto
it we're a brand new company built from from
the network it was it was my next business you
know Yeah, and I like that. That's something
I've always emphasized. Now, I admire all the
people who are doing the do -it -yourself projects
on the network and showing others how to get
involved and do the really techie stuff, but
that's really not what we want to show to the
broader Helium audience who's just trying to
figure out what this network is for. I mean,
with the businesses developing on this network,
it should be as easy as your app. You scan the...
QR code into the app that supports it. Everything's
taken care of on the back end. If you need extra
features, you go through the API, which is one
of the features that you have. with your product
yeah and that's that's one thing we're hearing
from a lot of companies is that we've developed
a full system that's white labeled as well so
we can build apps for them but at the end of
the day they just want access to the data we
have an api and a lot of what we've seen before
is you know here's a little project you can run
go start up a vps and you can install it but
again that's too much for most people to to understand
so What we've built is a great base for any sensor.
Right now, that only sensor is asset tracking
and sensors on a map. But we have a base of the
system in place that's, you know, could take
a million users tomorrow. But we could also change
it to show. temperature, humidity, manned down
detection for tilt detection. We can do anything.
It's just right now we're a small team, so we're
focused on one sensor. A big part of what I'm
hearing from feedback from people on the network
right now that are building for it is there's
a lack of investment. And they've got these great
ideas and I hear them all the time. And it's
so easy to get excited about an idea in Helium.
But there's no funding for it. There are grants
if you want to open source everything. But if
you want to do something commercially, they can't
help you. They can't help you with the grant.
So having the investors on the network is a bit
of a point, a sticking point for us as well.
Right now, we've got some big ideas, but they're
just a little out of reach because we need the
funding to do it. And that's the story over and
over that I'm hearing from a lot of folks. Yeah.
And one of the reasons I like having people like
you on, and as well as the Australians, although
it was something more political, the point is
that there's people who want to build on this
network, who have solutions, who are going to
spend the time and investment into a product
that is going to utilize this global. this global
LoRaWAN network. I mean, I'm sure you have better
ways to spend your time and your money if this
thing was just a joke for mining crypto. I don't,
I'm not of that opinion. Now, of course, there's
always going to be some dissent in the comments
as to all the other solutions that are available.
And I also drove this point home about the utility
of LoRaWAN. how long range it is and how resilient
it is. But I guess, can you give us the benefit
of using one of your devices over something like
an Apple AirTag? For those in the audience who
are just hearing about this, they're probably
wondering the same thing. Sure. So an Apple AirTag
is a Bluetooth low energy device, so it needs
ring doorbells, other iPhones. So I always say
that it's great if you are in a town in a city
center or or the suburbs. Generally, you'll find
iPhones and ring cameras and things. But when
you start going out into the sticks, it will
just get lost. What I always say is that you
can lose your bag on a train, for example, if
that train goes to the depot and there's no iPhone
devices, you wouldn't notice that. Once it returned
the next day, you would be able to find it, but
it'd be a long time before you realize. Whereas
these devices are always on, so wherever there's
helium coverage, there is service for this. So
you know yourself, so if you put a... hot spot
that's really well on the peak of the hill you
could probably cover 40 kilometers 50 kilometers
for sensors where an iphone's only going to do
a few meters in front of it so you have to make
sure you you're in range of one of those things
for it to work whereas helium's just got the
opportunity for bigger coverage Yeah, the technology
is great. I mean, it's not too bad at the moment.
You've seen what the tabs are like, right? They're
not too bad. They're pretty good. But we're talking
about the future of it now, the next stage for
it. So that's what we launched today. Last night,
sorry, an article about how we can ditch the
GPS chip and use trilateration and AI to basically
reduce the size of these things. Here's an example
of what we've built. For example, this is a...
This is our new tracker. We wanted a base model
to work from so we can control the firmware.
But you can see on the back of it, that is the
GPS antenna. I'm going to disconnect my VPN,
just continue explaining, and I'll be right back.
Sure. Sure. So yeah, so this is a tracker we
built. It's very, very small, but you have to
remember this is just a tracker. We need a battery
that connects to it as well and then a case as
well. So quite a lot of that footprint is the
charging circuit. And obviously there's a thick
GPS antenna on the back of it there. Really,
if we could lose that GPS chip. we could half
the size of it, put it with a coin cell, and
we would literally have an Apple AirTag -sized
device, you know, with a coin cell battery on
the back that could be replaced. But the thing
is that we can have that thing last for a month
and work all over the world. That's amazing.
What we do for that basically is we use the signal
strength and multiple packets enabled to work
out where it is in the world. And then we run
it through a TensorFlow AI model to precisely
pick it, and we can return an accurate location.
There's an article up on Medium. It's on our
Twitter, which is just track back. if you want
to follow us on there. And you can see in the
article that we've got some predictions in there
that you can see. And yeah, it's crazily accurate
right now. So it could mean that we can shrink
the size of even this device, which is, you know,
fairly small compared to other devices, you know,
already. We could then half this as well, which
is, you know, just crazy. Yeah, it's a fun time.
It's really nice getting into a project for Helium
that seems to be making so much difference. We've
got some pretty big names that want to work with
us, that want to use this technology. One of
the biggest ones at the moment is Brompton Cycles.
They make these folding commuter bikes. So people
will, you know, ride them to the train station,
get on the train to work and then ride them to
their place of work. So they're not, you know,
they're in city centres. you know, in the middle
of a field somewhere, it's like the perfect use
case. And what they're doing is they're putting
the trackers under the seat. And what they're
using it for is anonymous usage statistics. So
they have these. rental lockers all over london
and these are these are on these trackers are
on those bikes so what they can see and what
they can give to the councils is usage statistics
so they can know oh well maybe we're best putting
a locker in here it's best spending our time
putting more more lockers over here and this
is how the usage is so they can report all of
this and they've They just love the data. They've
been trying to do this kind of system for six
years, but every time they've done it, the power
requirement is nearly impossible to run a SIM
card -based tracker. But then if they could,
the cost for installation and the gateways to
support everything is just astronomical. Whereas
for Helium, we do it for $40 a tracker. So it's
just almost 10 times cheaper for them. And what's
neat is that even if you don't have coverage
in some location for whatever reason, maybe there's
not hotspots there or you have sensors down in
the basement or in a hard -to -reach area, you
could always throw in a data -only hotspot where
it's already configured for the helium network.
It's fairly cheap. They're about $150, give or
take. The onboarding process is simple. They
don't participate in proof of coverage, so you'd
only earn from what you make of data credits.
However, it is very convenient of a setup for
if you're actually deploying this stuff in the
field. So, yeah. Go ahead. You're dead right.
I mean, that's why we always say to it, we've
got some trials with companies and they're saying,
you know, every now and again, oh, you know,
I'm losing a little bit of coverage here delivering
to a depot. And we were saying to them, you know,
one well -placed antenna can do 50, 60 kilometers
away from that depot of coverage. So you can
fill in those gaps really easy. The one thing
I say at the moment is, though, there are some
pretty good deals out there for fall. for um
hotspots so they're almost as cheap as data hotspots
at the moment and uh another good one is to check
ebay and things you can actually get them quite
cheap so depends on what you want to do if it's
for data only obviously you just not messing
with poc and mean less goes wrong but i always
say you know you might as well learn a little
bit yeah just make sure if you're gonna buy a
hotspot second hand it's not on the deny list
yeah i don't know yeah how you deal with that
it's taken care of uh at this point but the easiest
way is to ask the buyer for the hotspot name
run it through um explorer and check it i mean
the great thing about ebay is you have the buyer's
protection so you generally always win as a buyer
don't you so a question for you can i can you
put one on a dog yeah i mean so i actually run
come Go ahead. I run one of these on the dog
at the moment. It's a bit big, but I think of
it as a testing device. What we've really built
is a small tracker that we can work into a collar,
basically. This device here is a little big.
A lot of it's a charging circuit. There's obviously
pins for programming and things. So once we get
this size down and once we get the finalizer,
we can put it into a collar. The other option
that we wanted to really explore is harnesses
as well because there's a bit more room for...
the tech in one of those side pouches of a harness.
So we're definitely wanting to cover dogs and
cats. We want to get this small enough that you
would be able to put it on a cat. The thing that's
holding us back at the moment is the GPS is so
powerful that it drains the battery. If we can
get rid of the GPS and use this trilateration
system that we've built, we can have coin cell
batteries. So they will be small. They will be
tiny. And the cat would just look like it's got
a tiny pendant on it, you know? Yeah, so I'll
ask you a couple of questions. Well, first, what
other type of products do you have, if you can
share, do you have in mind for track pack? Will
you be developing any other type of sensory devices
for other needs? Or are you just developing specifically
trackers right now in all shapes and sizes? Yeah,
right now we're just focusing on trackers. Obviously
there's a lot of changes that some people need.
We've been asked about temperature readings.
Also about things like man down, so tilt detection
on helmets and things like that. So it's just
all basically what I call functional tracking.
It's basically tracking, which is just working
out the location, but then there's functions
on top of that. I want to know if the temperature
goes, or I want to know if the tilt sensor's
gone, or I want a push button to notify me if
someone's pushed it that they need help, things
like that. That's what we're mainly focused on
at the moment. We have kind of like an internal
division called a track pack. labs. The idea
there is that I tried to source feedback the
other day on Twitter just to see what people
want to exist on Helium. If we can put a door
sensor app out there and it helps people onboard
door sensors and it takes us a couple of days
to put that kind of thing live, we're all for
it. If people have use cases, please come and
talk to me. We're happy to help. If there's a
business model there and we can see the clear
potential for it, we will help as much as we
can to get that thing live. Right now, Helium
needs data usage, not full stories about who's
using the network. We took our time before we
mentioned Brompton. We have live sensors with
them. We didn't want to kind of give off that
example that Lime or any of the other ones gave.
We actually have usage from these companies.
We have sensors live now, and things are growing.
We've got a lot of interest. Yeah, no, that's
awesome. Lost my train of thought here. There
was something else I was going to say on that
note. Oh, yeah. Within the Helium community,
I mean, what is part of what I guess what's special
about crypto projects in general, but something
that is kind of cutting edge in its own way,
you would classify Heliums as Tippin's, I guess,
Web3 potentially. Regardless, you have people
who stood up a bunch of hotspots or helium miners
for this network. Now you have a group of people
inside who are saying, hey, reach out to us.
We can help you design solutions. We can help
you build. We can build them and provide them
to you. You just got to let us know what you
want, which is always neat. It's really a community
crowdsourced effort. Exactly. And I couldn't
have got where I did before the Helium community.
There's a guy that's very special to me, Jazz
Williams. He was helping me write to coders and
things and work out what I needed to send and
how I formatted everything. I didn't know this
before. I've never worked with sensors before.
And I've got to the stage now where we as a company
are building hardware and writing firmware and
that we have AI prediction models and things.
I didn't know this technology before and it was
only through the help of my peers I've been able
to get so far. So, you know, that's a big thing
that with Trackpack that we wanted to do is the
whole system's white labeled. So you can install
it, run it in your own business. All you would
need to do is put up a promotional website. Maybe,
you know, if you wanted to track ATVs and you
wanted to start an ATV tracking business, make
sure you have relevant content about ATVs. Do
your research on what tracker fits the ATV and
say why it's so good for the ATV. talk about
the features that are particularly useful for
them and start a business and use it through
Helium and a bit of money with us. I want to
help the community grow and I want to help data
usage grow. So we can only do that together.
And it's one big thing that hotspot owners need
to realize. And I think people are waking up
to the idea that you're never going to learn
a lot from the data transfer of one sensor. But
the power of us all having sensors will mean
that our price of our HNT will rise, right? So
even though you may think that one sensor will
never earn you that much, what you're earning
in POC now will be worth more if we all grab
sensors, right? There must be at least 150 ,000
of us owners, hotspot owners, right? It must
be more than that now. If we all bought a sensor,
we'd have 150 ,000 on there, which is way more
than what it is now. yeah potentially potentially
yeah well it'll probably double the number maybe
exactly that's the whole point i don't know you
can't really tell the exact number of sensors
on the on the network but there last time um
we got a roundabout number there was i thought
over a hundred thousand sensors on the network
at this point in time well It's difficult because
we don't know roaming providers, how many sensors
they have. But one stat I do know is that roaming
is the largest data user on the network now.
So there are more people roaming from using other
networks than there are helium sensors. So there
are a few and they are growing, but it's just
at the moment more is coming from existing. Can
you break that down to the audience with what
you mean by roaming, specifically on LoRaWAN?
right yeah exactly so there are networks that
exist like senate um Utility, I think, is one.
And there's another few. And basically, they
enable roaming on Helium. So if you're not in
range of one of the Senate gateways, it will
roam over Helium and they will pay Helium for
that data usage. So most of the time when they're
installing an area, they'll install a Senate
sensor. But oftentimes when the sensor moves
like an asset tracker, it will roam over Helium.
And what's happened right now is that roaming
has overtaken. plain sense helium sensors so
there are more sensors from other networks and
there are helium adding more more credits and
more you spending more money so yeah which makes
sense that is this big step that is a huge step
i mean there are there are things holding them
back for sure um now i think the next big step
well you beat me to it chirp chirp stick where
along with uh you know migration to solana the
helium it's standard lorwan but the way it's
built out on the back end was meant to be more
decentralized and from the way i understand it
they will be taking chirp stack and adding some
modularity and features to it so we still have
that decentralized modular network but built
on something that is more um more standardized
yeah yeah that's it i'm sorry my dog's wandering
in the background but that's it um right now
um helium took um that the laura name server
and wrote their own version of it. They've tried
to keep it to spec, but it's missing some features.
It's not as fully featured as Chirpstack. There
are options for you to carry on using console,
but what is exciting for me is things like Chirpstack
can be used. You can also technically use the
TTN networks version as well. That can be installed
and run, or you can write your own and run it,
this idea of open LLS. But what Chirpstack really
brings is the ability to use Class C devices.
Another big one that I really like and it needs
some work is device profiles. So rather than
going to go find a decoder, you could just type
the device's type in and it will automatically
put it. And you can even pick which version of
that you're using. So, you know, one of the big
things I found at the start when I bought my
first sensor, which is a Dragino sensor, I had
to work out what version of firmware was installed
before I could know which decoder to use. And
then, you know, I had to update that to get to
the latest. use it but if we were using chirp
stack i could have just picked that um version
and run with it much much quicker and yeah it
would just cause more people to want to use a
network i mean there are networks out there there
are public um networks lnss running you know
but they just don't have the coverage helium
has um they've tried to do it for years but the
problem is is there's just never a reason to
expand them beyond where they're being used you
know people weren't going to just install tcn
network gateways in the middle of nowhere unless
they were using them you know helium did solve
that problem uh you know it's it's an amazing
thing and so many new businesses can exist and
i think that's the biggest potential for this
network so many new potentials can systems can
exist because of helium i don't think we'd have
a lot more you know switching over i think it's
new businesses like trackpack for example that
can exist because of the helium network that
we're going to see the massive growth in Yeah,
I certainly agree there. As far as, so we have
some other people talking about random crypto
in the space. We'll talk about that in a little
bit. But there was a comment from Dave saying,
why hasn't anyone gone into the grow room business
with this setup? So we'll use this as an example.
Let's say someone wants to. If you know what
all is entailed there or just basically like
monitoring crops or monitoring the room or humidity,
temperature, et cetera. Can you give us a short
rundown? If someone wanted to develop their own
products for that, how would you go about that?
yeah really i'd work out what is important for
the crop you know um it depends on what crop
you know you can look at light cycles watering
cycles um and really you can automate all of
that i mean there's a little there's a little
bit of a stick in that um auto watering um without
class c means that you would have to run timers
on the watering um rather than waiting for a
for a downlink to stop the water otherwise it
could just flood so but yeah i'd really look
at what you need to gather sensor data wise what
you need to activate um can you activate uh um
you know for example water watering or is there
a vent on the property that you need to you know
bring the humidity down or the temperature down
or increase the temperature by closing them once
you've got that kind of metric then you can um
install it basically run a really cheap proof
of concept so you know maybe install a soil moisture
sensor maybe install a a humidity sensor and
a temperature sensor and just try and get go
with basic tools. A big part of that is come
to the healing community and talk with other
people. They'll be able to get you going with
how to start this kind of thing. Once you have
a proof of concept, that's the point you can
say, right, I have one installed. Can I go install
this somewhere else? And can it work the same
way there? Once you've got it for a few places,
you realize there might be some slight differences
or there might be some complications that you
hadn't thought of or features that you needed
to exist on top of that. But don't spend a lot
of money. Just get it out as cheaply and as easily
as you can. Start with a rack development kit
or a seed development kit. Try and get the basics
out and prove that there's a concept here and
it's repeatable. And only at that point would
you start thinking about what we've done with
creating an app or creating a business website
for it. prove the idea and then take it to the
next stage. Another big, big thing I'll talk
about is that we obviously did a proof of concept
for Trackpack, went on Helium Hacks Happy Hour,
talked about it, and we got some small funding.
available for us to start track pack so if you
talk about your idea share your projects and
people will share for you they love seeing new
sensors on the healing network um at that point
you might find funding you might find people
that are interested in giving you help you know
don't go it alone there are there are enough
people on this network that will help you yeah
so is there anything else i want you to get uh
end to end for your your product before we uh
start going a little bit you know outside the
lines and on the stream here we can take callers
if you like to uh we can share a little bit more
you can stay till the end of the hour or take
off whatever you'd like to do neil but i appreciate
you talking about this yeah i'm happy to answer
any questions as well so let's let's talk about
anything i'm not sure i'm that relevant in other
cryptos but you can probably drag me up a little
bit yeah so Well, I was going to add Dave, but
he got up and walked away. Shane M. writes, a
coming $10 tracker with free or super cheap data
is a game changer. We're going to track everything
in the future. Yeah, I mean, right now, looking
at this tracker that we built, this is a sub
$30 tracker with battery, with case. I mean,
there's obviously some production costs to go
in there that take it a little higher. But if
we could drop that GPS chip, you know, we really
think in bulk we can get it under $10. I really
do think that changes the game. It's so cheap
that you just don't think about it, you know.
It could just suddenly be implemented in everything.
I mean, we've had some crazy people, crazy use
cases. i'm gonna have to look into the trilateration
because some of the way i know how that worked
out was extremely difficult to nail down and
and i think helium has a few issues of their
own with like hot spot assertion places and how
that's a little inaccurate but like you said
it's the ai model so i'm sure there's flexibility
there now i'm going to add uh dave to the stream
in a moment here. And I think he may have questions
for you, but Dave, welcome to Network Bitstream.
Hey, can you guys hear me? Hey, Dave. Hey, what's
up, guys? You guys can hear me? Yeah. All right,
cool. I was wondering how much data can the chipset
transmit and what would be like the continual
monitoring rate of the data? Yeah, I mean like
if the battery life like you said it has a built
-in battery life. So obviously There's gonna
be a capability to expand that that's not very
difficult. You know what I mean? What's the voltage
of it? 5 .5. I'm assuming I Wouldn't know the
voltage to be honest with you. That's not the
harder guy, but I could tell you give the battery
there Like can you see the battery like the battery
voltage? We literally, this doesn't have a battery
and this one's like a 540 milliamp hour battery.
So it's a very small battery. I mean, this for
me, tracking the dog, I walk the dog two hours
a day, that dog, this lasts for two weeks. But
if you were constantly moving around with this
thing, a day or so. See, like the use case I
was thinking about personally is like my side
gig that I'm currently medically retired from,
but still on call. You know, just fixing everybody
else's problems. I'm a master grower and a grow
room engineer for the cannabis industry in Canada.
We do large scale grow room and grow room designs.
Like personally, it's just me. But like I have
my own company that does it. We work with companies
like my biggest corporation that I have right
now is Canopy Growth Corp. They encompass, I
think, 30. different medical licenses in canada
right now and when i started there they had this
agricultural system that cost them what was it
like seven hundred thousand dollars to set up
three grow rooms for monitoring um we're talking
like miles and miles and miles of rj45 cabling
it's like Are you high? I literally, when I walked
in there, I ripped apart the master grower. He
got fired. This is at the open house. Ripped
apart. Went in the next day, ripped out the entire
grow room system, replaced it all with Arduinos
and Android tablets. that were on the outside
and like yeah the arduino's i was able to do
the ph monitoring i was able to do the humidity
the temperature the light like i could get the
par and the spectrums i could make sure that
my like the wind was fluctuating right you know
what i mean like i had fan controllers and stuff
um what would be like the lifespan on one of
those units um Like that you're going to be releasing
with the built -in battery, I guess, if I was
to do constant or like say 15 second interval
monitoring. Yeah, I mean, generally, like on
the trackers, we'd like 30 -second uplinks, minute
uplinks, two -minute uplinks. But if you're moving
into a world where you're monitoring soil moisture
and stuff, I mean, obviously, it's longer times,
right? Five minutes or 10 minutes, you know,
or hours or half hours. So when you put a decent
AC and 650 battery in, and depending on the place
you're growing, is it outdoor or indoor, you
can put solar panels and they'll last a whole
year on a little... you know little tiny solar
panel like that so but generally yeah you're
talking years of battery life for for a target
like that and yeah like you say no cables to
run you can you can really be doing it you could
have an actuator on vents you could have an actuator
fans power reach reach out to me through joe
after the podcast um we should um It's one of
those projects that I built. One of the first
sensors after building the MAPPA was building
a pH monitoring sensor in the garden that was
powered by solar just to see what it did. It
also had temperature and humidity in it. Putting
that data and having it on a little solar panel
like that that lasted all year. I just think
about an injection mold process where you have
one of those cheap little like one of the cells
off of a panel. You know what I mean? Yeah, exactly.
On top of it. And then you have the sensor that
hangs off of it and like a little mount that
you can put it. If you're doing it in an indoor
growth space, the lighting alone is going to
produce enough light. Yeah, exactly. So that's
the kind of panel that I was using in the garden
that lasted all year. That was more than enough
power for it. So, you know, it doesn't even cost
anything in electricity to run it. And if it's
under HID lights, like in an indoor growth space,
you're still... talking like 12 hours at least
of light every day of like the highest intensity
light that a cell could experience sure exactly
no it's really interesting i mean we should talk
about working on some it's just one of those
things that like there's so many use cases for
laura but there's not a massive amount of people
that know how to build a full system i want to
kind of like educate people on like being able
to do that and offer services but some of it
does need you know specialization like i don't
own a grow house i wouldn't know exactly what
you need to monitor so you bring that experience
in and maybe we can develop a little system or
a little prototype of building it you know but
that that's what's lacking in the community is
working together to build these solutions we
need more of that you know i've got this solution
that needs monitoring how do i get there how
do we help and get there quickly Oh, yeah. Like,
yeah. Well, I do want to push the envelope on
619 OTA's idea here for some sort of... I'm not
in the YouTube chat. I apologize. No, he talks
about it regularly, sometimes in the Discord
and, you know, YouTube channel, whatever. But
it's a great idea. It would be nice to see a
dedicated catalog through Helium of the different
types of devices that... you could utilize on
the network and who supports those types, like
what companies are currently selling them, link
to the website. If there's an access node to
the network that's accessible through a Raspberry
Pi, then you're talking anything. It's one of
those ones, Joe, like literally anything. You
could monitor the reflection of your mirror in
the morning if you really wanted to. But it's
one of those things that we shouldn't rely on
Nova or the foundation to do, though, Joe. We
should be building that kind of site. That in
itself can earn money from advertisements, from
product placement, from product reviews. That
in itself is a great idea, but it's just manpower
or womenpower or anything power to build that
kind of solution. I might be able to access some
of that manpower. Yeah, exactly. And it's a great
little site. I mean, we talked about doing it
before, calling it Helium Reviews, actually tested
sensors and see how they use and what information
you need to get them on the Helium network, what
providers are best to use them with. You can
start building a really nice catalog, but yeah,
it just needs time and effort. And yeah, I think
a lot of people rely on Helium and Nova to do
that. And it's just, they are so spread thin
as it is that we need to provide those solutions
for them, you know. Yeah, Joe's got to send me
a helium miner to set up the network for my farm.
Do it. All right, you got it. One of the things
I wanted to cover, the transition to Solana that's
currently taking place. I want to know your guys'
thoughts on it. Incredible. Either way, I'm not
really too bothered by it. Do I really care that
much about Solana? Not necessarily, but I don't
think it's the end of the world. I don't think
they're as bad as people make them out to be.
I know, Dave, you and Akiva had something on
your website about that, a podcast about it as
well, which I listened to some of it. But I want
to hear both of your thoughts on Solana. I think
Solana is a great project. I think the fact.
of all this FUD is hilarious. I think the fact
that they like, like they showed their funds,
like they have 50 years of funding to fund the
project at its current size in their own coffers.
So like, it's FUD. It's FUD. It's FUD. Like,
if you have, if I had extra money right now,
I'd be buying soul. left right and center not
financial advice but but like there's so many
good projects that might be great that might
be great financial advice because jim kramer
says not to i don't know buy it if i'm talking
to you joe as like my homeboy then i'd be telling
you i would be putting at least 20 of all your
investments into it okay let's not get crazy
here No, like I'm saying, if you were to say
like the way I was investing because I'm a miner
is I would take my money. But you're being serious
here. You like Solana that much? Yeah, I like
Solana. It's one of like four coins currently
that I have a bag of in my hodl. That's like
one of four. And yeah, if I could be mining it
right now and be paying the bills, I would be.
but i can't so i mine various other coins and
projects that mind me enough coins though i can
pay the bills like it's currently well well currently
just off my 10 uh 30 70 rig uh there's 10 30
70s and two uh 6800s on it i've made uh 1400
in the last week and a half just off that rig
And it's mining a coin that nobody's heard of.
And I actually have an interview with the devs
coming up called Nexa. And it's a solid project.
It's actually backed from what's it called? Bitcoin
Unlimited or Bitcoin Ultimate or whatever. Those
guys. So like the Bitcoin Cash or BCH. Yeah.
Those guys kept trying to implement. optimizations
to the network that the Bitcoin cash team was
just like kept shooting down and shooting down
and shooting down and shooting down so they said
I catch and um and went and made Nexa and Nexus
been just like a powerhouse like we just went
up I think like 40 % today in value like there's
only one exchange that's dealing with it right
now We're getting listed on another exchange.
We're just trying to get the liquidity. I say
weird, like I'm being part of it. That's like,
it's that minor mentality that's going to make
this coin successful. Like the project is solid.
It's a layer one. They're offering up to 100
,000, I think, transactions per second. Well,
I've heard quite a bit about Nexa lately. So
real quick, I want to get your opinion, Neil,
on the Solana transition. And we'll get into
the other topics, of course. No worries. But
you're more inside of Helium. You're a moderator
there. You have a lot of, I mean, you see all
the conversation that's taking place. You're
in the events and the community chats. What is
your thoughts overall? Yeah, I mean, I have to
be, you know, in Discord and chats with Helium
Foundation and Nova, they obviously can't talk
about price. So it's always difficult for me
to get my views across about the move and everything.
Can I just say subtly he agrees with me? No,
just to say, I mean, it scares me a little, the
move. I've got to be honest, the move scares
me. The biggest problem we have on the network
right now is Helium, on the Helium network. is
that the only real funds that are being hodled
are the HST rewards. So generally, they won't
sell their earnings. So nearly all of it is being
sold all the time. So when we move to a network
that people are a bit scared of and they hear
about this thing, they're worried, so they don't
hodl. And that's what we really need to help
the price increase, that people are hodling and
not selling their coins. So the perception of
the network is so bad that it worries me to move.
But generally, generally, when you actually look
at the technology, when you look at the community
base, when you look at how many developers are
there that have this mentality of chewing glass.
So let's just build it. Let's just keep going.
Let's keep these solutions going. Let's build
it. The pace that they have is exciting and it's
great to think that we could be a big deal for
slot. Solana, is incredible. I've always seen
it from the start. The Solana team and the Helium
team are very close. You just can't beat that.
They have always been close. It just makes sense.
Solana wasn't around when Helium launched, so
Helium did their own. Exactly. People want to
talk about backroom deals and politics, but look,
if you've consulted with another business, five
years ago and they fit the bill then and now
they're gonna fit the bill and you got a good
relationship with them exactly yeah it kind of
makes sense from that from that standpoint now
the there was something else um on the note of
solana where one of the big arguments is it's
a vc based um yeah a vc based blockchain so i
get it i i certainly get it where but you've
got to look at it you've got to look at it now
that we've just cleared out sam bankman freed
from you know having any interest it's not even
you know i mean look this is what this is the
point i'm trying to make is it's kind of like
when you send you know non -political people
into politics hoping that they're going to do
what's right for you where it's like the decentralization
uh um cult in crypto everyone wants to be decentralized
and away from the powers that be well just look
at what happened with ethereum did vitalik end
up being our friend in the end did he do what
is necessarily right for the ethereum network
you can make a case both ways but it's the same
thing just because you're going to start with
a network that maybe is more you know philosophically
in your lane it doesn't mean it's going to end
up like that in the end when they see the dollar
signs just a thought i mean that's that's one
thing i always say and i think helium could help
solana a lot you know we can we can have a lot
of positive influence i mean name me many how
many cryptos are out there that actually have
real world usage and i mean look This is on a
crypto network. Right now, this physical thing
that I hold in my hand is on a crypto network.
I'm powered by a crypto network. This is not
the promise of usage. This is not the promise
of development of solutions. This is actually
real world solutions right now. So I think we
will drag Sol up. quite a bit you know when we
go forward what they're doing is looks fantastic
the community over there are fantastic the events
they put on are fantastic the technology is great
and the decentralization is improving all the
time right they've got two different validators
now right they've almost got two different validators
produced by different companies you can't get
more decentralized than that you know um Real
quick, anyone in the audience, I left the call
link pinned. So we got about 11 more minutes.
If you do want to call in and chat, if you have
some questions, you can also leave the comments
in the chat. But Neil, you'll probably be taking
off in about 10 minutes here. And then the other
gentleman, Akiba, will be coming on. And that
will begin the second hour where we discuss crypto
slate. crypto in general but one of the things
i'm uh wondering neil from from your standpoint
in helium there's a lot of other talk about the
different networks that are being stood up as
well uh geonet weather xm uh hive mapper demo
yeah i can't think of all of them off the top
of my head but there's a few more all the time
isn't there Yeah. Do you have your eye on any
of them in particular? I like WeatherXM. Obviously,
they just got botted when they went on sale,
right? So everyone got really long wait times.
And we're in crypto winter, so buying hardware
right now is tough, right? But yeah, I do like
WeatherXM. GeoNet, yeah, to an extent. I think
GPS and GNNS is the old way of doing it, a little.
But the ideas are good for existing systems.
So Patrick Guillen would like to ask the question
that I've answered for him before. Sure. What
problem does this exactly solve? Patrick, are
you referring to the helium network or are we
talking about moving to Solana? I think he's
talking about sensors. So let's just go based
on that. And I say that helium. just means that
inanimate objects can be tracked finally. Really,
tracking before was for something that was expensive.
But really, we've seen use cases from skip hires
to onion pallets was another big one, bikes,
objects. You can really track anything that makes
a massive difference. Like a great use case that
I was always told about was... um onion farmers
have to use food safe um containers um this one
particular business that we talked to um was
losing 300 000 pounds worth of um of um containers
every year so with it with a few trackers for
next to nothing they can save themselves that
much money um and the only thing that was stopping
them was that you know sim cards are too power
hungry and you just can't afford to track an
onion crate whereas if you get these things out
of ten dollars Outrageous. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
And if you look at what nano things are doing
or what we're doing with technology going forward
and trying to get these things smaller and cheaper,
then it can start making sense. But a big one
that I love for asset tracking and talking about
is this idea of proof of location, proof of presence.
So with the Helium network, without using GPS,
we can tell you that something is where it says
it's meant to be and where it is if it moves.
So that can enable things like smart contracts
to be sold. So decentralized delivery, for example,
or if you were in charge of storing, I think
one of the other companies on one of Gristle
King's streams was saying that, you know. If
you're a whiskey investor and you were storing
whiskey barrels and things, you could put a tracker
on that whiskey barrel and know where it is and
prove that it's actually safe in the warehouse.
Was that the helium competitor? The competitor?
The competitor? No, they were actually using
helium, but I think most of it was their main
project was unsolved. Okay, because I heard the
other... wannabe competitor with overpriced hardware
was trying to do the same thing right right did
you see my videos about them there's a few there's
a few networks trying to take on what helium
are doing now isn't that but well it's not it's
the other ones are all right um it's mxc that
are really the turds in the punch bowl i just
never do that i could never do that network the
second i saw that the gateways that a hundred
dollars worth of hardware were two I just knew
what game they were in. They were in the hardware
game, you know? I had a misjudgment for a moment
there and figured, hey, I might not get my helium
hotspots, so I'll get one of these. Got my ROI,
but aside from that, what a waste. And you guys
can watch the video. It's quite entertaining.
I am going to bring in Akiba. Hey, hey. Welcome
to the stream. Hello. How's everyone doing today?
Good day, buddy. Good to see you. Yeah, good
to see you. Really interesting conversation,
guys. Yeah, we'll keep the conversation going
for the next five, maybe ten minutes, Neil. Whenever
you want to kick off, you can. Yeah, but then
we'll keep them. I'm sure he has some input on
the guy. I do want to do before we begin the
next segment, a hard cut where we do the formalities
and introduction because Chris and I. uh we are
cutting this up for his blockchain bay podcast
and i also want to get a dedicated video to you
guys and neil we already have one for you so
sure we'll be good here sounds good go ahead
akiba is there something uh you were going to
say no i would just say i really want one of
those things one of those uh things for my dogs
i think they uh The options that are out there
at the moment, as you say, are all SIM card -based,
and they just really don't work, or they're Bluetooth
-based, which just don't seem to really make
sense. That's the thing. You have this network
that you were talking about. So just to finish
quickly, one of the biggest things that people
keep asking me, obviously I'm a journalist in
this space and also do some consultancy as well,
is like, oh, is crypto dead? What's happening
when people just look at prices? And they completely
miss this core infrastructure that is still building,
that is still growing. And it's a meme, but the
infrastructure is still early. This is all in
beta really still. And we're finding real use
cases. And I think as much as there's pros and
cons about, say, the Helium network, the fact
that there is a massive network there with proper
infrastructure, with obvious use cases, I think
it's phenomenal just as an achievement, whether
it ends up being the thing that survives or not.
I think it's one of the best use cases for like
a... crypto ecosystem coming together to build
something amazing. It is. It just takes the people
to get behind it. The only reason that this network
is going down in price is because people don't
believe in it. If we could get more people to
believe in it and show more usage, that's something
we as a community need to do, then we could build
this into something massive. It just takes a
little bit of effort from everyone. We kind of
need the crypto bros that just want to run. from
hosting a hotspot you know we need those people
otherwise we wouldn't get a global spread of
hotspots you know we need them as much but to
get them to earn more we need more people that
are willing to put the effort in to build up
the services you know and it just takes it just
takes effort and there's there's a few of us
right now and more are welcome you know i'll
always help train people up but we need people
with use cases to step forward and say i've got
use case i can drive sales help me build a solution
you know And like I said, when it comes to helium,
I'm not listening to the crypto bros that are,
you know, they stick their finger in the air,
figure out which way the wind blows that day.
It's people like Neil, Travis, Leo, people who've
been in the industry building on the network
that find utility to the point where they feel
that they could build. coherent product for their
business on it. I just don't understand where
the disconnect with some people are. It's like
they need that immediate result. And I think
so many people fail to realize that crypto is
not like the stock market. You look at the stock
prices and you can get a pretty fair gauge of
where the confidence and value is in that company.
But with crypto, I mean, it pumps so crazy once
every four years. And I just had a video that
I just posted yesterday that we cut out of another
live stream Travis was on, actually. And we went
over eight different factors that took place
for helium in 2021 that all those had a little
bit of an effect on the price. In one way or
another, they cause speculation or upward pressure.
on the exchanges sending that price to what it
was and i just see that so many people don't
understand the context of it because now they're
saying the same thing's going to happen to these
other projects that have way more of a maximum
supply of tokens it's like people they just don't
understand they don't they don't and i try my
best to uh drive the point home but do you know
a lot of that is because really surprised that
it always surprised me helium is a lot of people's
first crypto so when they see the price going
down they just think oh well this network's trash
but they don't really know about the rest of
the market and not seeing everything going down
you know so they think this thing's dead and
this is just a time that builders build right
and personally what why i haven't built on the
network yet um is because I ordered an abundance
from various manufacturers. I bet. Two years.
And people who I turned on to these manufacturers
were getting their stuff. And I turned them on
like a year after I'd already been waiting. And
I'm like, oh, you're in a queue from this and
that. And it's like, what are you talking about?
It absolutely sucks. It makes zero sense. But
like, I mean, thousands of dollars tied up. two
years. And then I had to fight with my credit
card companies to get my money back. And it was
just like, psycho. Yeah, that was such an unfortunate
situation. And it caused so much FUD for the
healing community. I mean, it was really everyone's
hands were tied in one way or another. The problem
that we've really seen is that you're not going
to get a lot of companies that are necessarily
going to manufacture for a crypto project or
really work with a crypto project because there's
still a lot of stigma around it and they don't
know if there's there's really reliability there
in that market now we're seeing some good companies
come along like seed studio they're excellent
bobcat they had production in the past for different
products but they've been an outstanding manufacturer
and What we had were people who had really great
development expertise, and some of them did own
a hardware shop, but not that would be able to
scale to the size that it needed, right in the
middle of the chip shortage and pandemic, where
everyone was having issues getting hardware.
So there was mismanagement there. There was some
dishonesty. I don't think that was a completely
blatant scam. And it's really hard to say. It
wasn't the network's fault. Yeah. And that's
what I got to say. It's not the network's fault.
And it's more than likely because there's like
two manufacturers out of the four manufacturers
of this kind of silicon product that were making
them. And then they all of them were signing
contracts with all these other helium miners.
So they were only going, oh, well, we can only
give you one tenth or one one hundredth of your.
Yeah, that happens so bad. And it just screwed
it like it. It screws the miners, though, like
because because it was the miners that were buying
them. Like it was it was the GPU miners that
I knew that were buying them. It was I knew hundreds
and hundreds and hundreds of them that had bought
them. and and when that happens you're taking
down a core infrastructure of the network so
unless you're a dedicated helium person at that
point you're not even gonna bother it's crazy
isn't it it sucks because like that's why i said
joe's gotta send me one so i can set it up at
my farm so i can start building with it You know,
I mean, it's like RAC and the CalChip situation.
CalChip just sold without confirming. RAC had
actually produced that many. Nebra, for example,
didn't realize they can't get Pi 4s and had to
go with Pi 3s. And they thought they could buy
the concentrators from RAC, but they couldn't.
They had to go source another manufacturer. They
didn't test well enough. So when they rolled
out, they were just horrible. And it just all
hit at a time where... Pies are in short supplies
because there was one manufacturer for a clock
on the pie. And that one manufacturer had a warehouse
fire right in the middle of COVID. So, you know,
supply went ridiculous. And they had to make
scrounge around and find parts and build solutions.
And things took years. And really, they've had
no comeuppance from that. But we've turned a
lot of people away from Helium because of the
situation so bad. When I started with Helium,
you were still able to modify the Linksys routers.
Yeah. And then... they nerfed that to instead
go with the manufacturers so then you had other
guys that had these likes that people were paying
to get like the modified routers they were paying
like five six seven hundred dollars to get them
yeah and then now they don't do anything like
they don't even i think i think that will get
better you know i think i think the network will
get better and people's earnings will improve
i think we're on that way but right now helium
as a project is solid and that's like that's
that's what matters and it's just like there
were fumbles at the beginning with manufacturing
with like second resellers and like everyone
pumping all these sales and then it's just like
yeah i don't know i still believe in the network
i just need a minor you want to send me one let's
go you can you can get the cash i don't care
i'll just freaking throw it up my tower maybe
we'll talk after the stream I need a sit. My
back's killing me. I was going to say, Joe, should
I head off then if you're going to talk to these
guys? It's been an hour. Thanks for coming on,
Neil. No problem. We'll link up through Joe afterwards.
Have a good one, man. No problem. Nice talking
to you.