The Everything Feed - All Packet Pushers Pods HW065: Using Orb to Monitor the Quality of Your Internet Connections
Nov 18, 2025
Josh Hardy, Co-founder and CTO of Orb, dives into internet connectivity with a focus on responsiveness over speed. He discusses Orb's innovative methodology for measuring connectivity, including latency, jitter, and packet loss. Josh explains how traditional speed tests often overlook these aspects and why optimized speed can harm user experience. Listeners learn about Orb's user-friendly scoring system, which simplifies complex metrics into an overall score. Hardy also shares insights on how the app continuously monitors connections with minimal impact.
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Responsiveness Over Peak Speed
- Orb measures responsiveness, not just peak throughput, because perceived speed often depends on latency and protocol behavior.
- Continuous, lightweight measurements reveal real user experience better than occasional heavy speed tests.
Founder’s Cabin Sparked Orb
- Jamie Stephen moved to a cabin with poor connectivity and found speed tests didn't reflect real problems.
- That experience sparked Orb's creation to measure real-world responsiveness continuously.
Measure Continuously With Low Overhead
- Run continuous, lightweight packet-level tests rather than heavy throughput tests to monitor experience.
- Keep measurements minimal (about two small packets per second, ~40MB/day) to avoid impacting users.