What you need to know about Amazon Sidewalk

First announced in September 2019, Sidewalk is a new idea and a long-term effort to expand smart home to entire smart neighborhoods through the use of various local area network options.

As of November 24, Amazon has started sending emails to Echo device owners letting them know that an update with Amazon Sidewalk will be rolling out soon. Although it takes time to set up the system, the first steps are underway.

With that in mind, here are some of the important things users should know about Amazon Sidewalk.

Amazon Sidewalk is basically a new kind of wireless network that greatly extends the capabilities of the smart home. A Sidewalk Bridge connects to your Wi-Fi network and essentially extends the range of connectivity beyond what your router can produce. In some cases, Amazon says that range could be half a mile.

It operates using various communication protocols, such as 900 MHz radio signals and Bluetooth Low-Energy, for inter-device communications. The system will intelligently switch between these protocols depending on the range and power required.

However, these Sidewalk networks operate a little differently from your home Wi-Fi network. The bandwidth of a Sidewalk network is open not only to your own devices, but also to your neighbors. It’s a bit like a local mesh network, but in a neighborhood.

Most Amazon device owners already have a sidewalk bridge in their home. Newer Echo and Ring devices will soon be receiving live updates that will allow them to function as bridges.

As mentioned earlier, one of the first and main goals of Amazon Sidewalk is to expand the range of your smart home gadgets. What this looks like in practical terms may differ depending on how your smart home is configured.

A Sidewalk network could, for example, ensure that outdoor security cameras or lights have a working connection even if they are far from your Wi-Fi router. It could also mean faster connectivity if a device connects to a Sidewalk. Bridge nearby, instead of trying to connect to a router further away.

If you drop a Tile device while walking around the neighborhood, it may still be within range of the Sidewalk LAN – and it will be able to connect to the appropriate servers using a neighbor’s Sidewalk bandwidth.

Sidewalk will also make device integration much faster and easier. And Amazon is considering other uses as well, like a pet safety service called Amazon Fetch, which alerts users if their pet wanders outside a predefined perimeter.

On the one hand, Sidewalk does not replace a home Wi-Fi network. The bandwidth available on a Sidewalk network is quite small – Amazon claims that the maximum bandwidth is only 80 Kbps, with a maximum limit of 500 MB. As such, it is only really useful for devices. low power consumption like smart locks, security sensors and tile trackers.

There are of course also security and privacy concerns. If your dog has a tag connected to Sidewalk on their collar, it means you may be sending Amazon the location, duration, and frequency of your walks of all dogs. Amazon has a white paper that explains some of its security policies related to Sidewalk.

Of course, there is also the question of whether it is a shared network. Although Amazon says it will encrypt all traffic sent through a Sidewalk network, users won’t know who is on a specific network or how much traffic their neighbor might send over it.

Overall, users will only be able to exercise marginal control over their local Sidewalk networks. There is currently no way for users to know which Sidewalk Bridge their compatible devices are connected to.

The downsides and implications of Amazon Sidewalk wouldn’t be so pressing if it wasn’t enabled by default. The system is opt-out instead of accepting

Once Amazon activates Sidewalk, users will see an information splash screen that explains what it is and what it does. There they will have the option to turn it off – it will be turned on by default.

Users will also be able to turn off the local network system through the Amazon Alexa app. The option is located in Settings> Account Settings> Amazon Sidewalk.

If users turn off Sidewalk, their devices will not be able to connect to their local area networks. On the other hand, neighbors won’t be able to use their Sidewalk bandwidth either.