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Approved Hotspot Makers

Be Careful and Do Your Own Research

Please be very careful if purchasing a Helium Hotspot from a non-authorized seller.

Hotspots can be transferred from one Helium Wallet to another.

Once they are added to the blockchain, only the owning wallet can transfer it to another.

Any transfers are solely between the two entities ("Buyer" and "Seller"), and Helium is not involved.

Nova Labs (formerly known as Helium Systems, Inc) was the first Hotspot manufacturer. Starting in early 2019, they produced the first hardware capable of mining HNT and providing LoRaWAN wireless coverage. In total, Nova Labs produced and sold the first 13,000 Hotspots to the Helium community to seed the Network. Nova Labs no longer manufacturers IOT Hotspots, but there is now an extensive list of approved manufacturers (known in the community as "Makers")

Since the introduction of HIP-19, additional approved Makers have been added. Each approved Maker is given a unique onboarding address on the Helium blockchain where they are required to burn data credits to onboard their unique Hotspots before they are granted access to the blockchain.

Number of IOT Hotspots Deployed by Each Maker​

Helium makers

Total onboarded Hotspots by Helium makers

In May 2024 the Helium Foundation formalized new obligations and accountability measures for manufacturers in the ecosystem. All existing IOT Makers, at the request of the Foundation, have signed new commercial agreements to improve performance and accountability on the supply side of the IOT ecosystem.

Defining an “Approved Maker” for the IOT Network​

The Foundation takes its role as Network steward seriously and works to ensure a healthy ecosystem of commercial participants. Over the long-term, a fair and open Network should be as permissionless as possible, however the realities of decentralization come with trade-offs. Bearing this in mind, the Foundation will continue to hold Makers accountable to the integrity which the Helium community deserves, until more processes can efficiently move on-chain.

Approved Maker Obligations​

Under the terms of the commercial agreement, Makers will fulfill a series of obligations including:

  • Maintain Hotspot Firmware including all appropriate LoRaWAN specifications, and communicate excessive delays of a public gateway-RS release.
  • Maintain a sufficient Onboarding Data Credit balance.
  • Respond to Foundation requests in a reasonable timeframe.
  • Be responsive to customers within commercially appropriate timelines.
  • Maintain public communications with respect to product and service support or changes.
  • That the Maker will not manipulate or “game” any Network incentives themselves, nor will the Maker permit or facilitate such activity.
  • That the Maker will not allow any ‘dual-mining’ that may degrade wireless connectivity or service.

Given that the Helium Network is decentralized in nature, there is some element for buyers to do their own research.

The Foundation will respond to aggregate issues by alerting Makers to community feedback, but has no responsibility for managing individual support matters. If community managers and Foundation employees are alerted to enough issues with a given Maker, that Maker will be prompted to acknowledge those issues in their public communications or in the Helium Network Discord server as appropriate. Failure by a Maker to acknowledge issues may result in removal from the ecosystem and withdrawal of approved maker status.

Currently Approved Hotspot makers

Atom​

ClodPi​

Dragino​

EDATEC (EDA-IoT)​

Finestra (Mimiq)​

FreedomFi (Now owned by Nova Labs)​

The FreedomFI Hotspot can work as an IOT Hotspot, a MOBILE CBRS Hotspot or operate on both networks.

Helium Systems Inc (Now Nova Labs)​

MerryIOT (Browan)​

MNTD (RAKwireless)​

IOT Hotspot​

MOBILE Wi-Fi Hotspot​

Nova Labs (was Helium Systems, Inc.)​

Selling MOBILE Wi-Fi Hotspot under the HelloHelium identity

Osprey Electronics (Ingenious Technology)​

ResIOT.io​

RisingHF​

SenseCAP (Seeed)​

Smart Harvest​

No longer approved and discontinued Makers

The following organizations have not signed the new Maker agreement with the Helium Foundation. Given that there is no guarantee to the community that the Maker’s obligations will be fulfilled, the Foundation cannot, in good conscience, allow these organizations to maintain “Approved Maker” status. Each of these Makers have been removed from the Helium Network website and will no longer have access to add new Manufactured Hotspots to the onboarding server. Please note that Hotspots already sold by the maker can still be added to the Network, whether through a Maker’s existing Data Credit balance or through user-funded onboarding. Please reach out to the respective Maker support channels for any questions related to their operations.No new manufactured Hotspots are allowed on the network by these makers. Existing stock already manufactured in sales channels or in storage already manufactured can be onboarded onto the network.

Helium Foundation still requests that these makers fulfill their obligations to their customers to fund the $40+$10 Onboarding and Location assertion fees but cannot enforce this requirement. Owners of un-onboarded Hotspots can pay the onboarding and location assertion fees from their own wallets if maker wallets are out of DC funds by using the Helium Wallet App. to onboard. Do not use the maker apps or the "Repair Onboarding" option in the Helium Wallet app unless the maker has enough DC in their wallet balance for the onboarding and assert transactions.

Aiteks​

Bobcat (Bobber)​

IOT Hotspot​

MOBILE Hotspot​

Calchip​

Calchip sold several brands of Helium Hotspot under their own onboarding account and also sold brands of Hotspot that usethe Makers onboarding account. Contact them for clarification if you purchased a Hotspot from Calchip and cannot onboard. RAKwiress hotspots branded MNTD will onboard under the MNTD maker above.

Controllino (Conelcom)​

Maker discontinued product, support taken over by Nebra

Cotx Networks​

Deeper​

Maker suspended April 2022

Dusun​

Heltec​

Hummingbird (RUFF)​

KS Technologies​

Linxdot (FX Technology)​

LongAP (HeNet BV)​

Midas wireless​

Milesight IoT​

Nebra​

Option​

Panther​

Pisces (GreenPalm)​

Pycom​

Maker went into liquidation. Support taken over by Nebra

SyncroB.it​

Maker went into liquidation. Support taken over by Nebra

Other Makers​

Other makers made HIP19 applications but did not manufacture hotspots for sale and have no entries in the onboarding servers so cannot be onboarded.