How Amazon Sidewalks works and why you want to turn them off

After months tests and delays, Amazon announced last Friday that it would definitely launch Amazon Sidewalk June 8: The new service will keep your Echo, Ring, and other Amazon devices connected to the Internet, even if your Internet service provider goes abroad. And as usual, your devices will automatically enroll in the program if you don’t opt ​​out. Here are the potential benefits and privacy issues to consider.

Amazon invoices “a new connected way”. It simply uses Amazon smart home appliances to create a mini network, which means your device can stay away from your router and even stay on the network when your Wi-Fi connection goes down.

To do this, Amazon uses unused portions of Bluetooth and wireless spectrum, with Ring cameras and Echo speakers acting as the main bridge (actually called Sidewalk Bridges) to keep everything connected. For the network to work properly, it must be compatible with the standard sidewalk; so expect Amazon to soon manufacture and market devices that meet this standard (e.g. The tile is already on the board. More in a moment.)

Even if your Ring camera is placed at the end of the garden, even if it is not available to your main router, it will be reached by a device closer to the Sidewalk. The network can’t carry a lot of data at once, but these smart home gadgets don’t necessarily need a lot of bandwidth to stay online.

The potential network autonomy is decent (up to half a mile depending on the configuration) and Sidewalk is free to use when Amazon customers purchase hardware. In addition, Amazon will speed up the process of adding new devices to your smart home, as your existing hardware can help with Wi-Fi connections and setup.

It’s so tempting so far, but the most controversial part of the Amazon Sidewalk is the road shares a portion of your internet bandwidth with neighbors (and returns some returns), creating a wider network of devices that can operate independently. If your internet is down, you can connect to the internet next to your Ring camera to continue sending alerts, assuming you are both set up with Sidewalk.

Also, if your neighbor’s internet is down, smart devices can be temporarily connected to your router and to the created sidewalk network. If Amazon has its way, the entire block will become a sidewalk network, improving the reliability and stability of all the smart devices within them, so you’ll be able to unlock your smart door more easily from the other end of the street.