Oct 24, 2021
Amazon Sidewalk — are you in or out?
6 June 2021
There’s been a lot of media coverage recently about Amazon Sidewalk. In case you don’t know what that is, Amazon has developed a distributed, shared IoT network that helps Ring devices stay online by allowing them to work during internet outages. Mainstream news and the tech press have come out in force to recommend that people opt out of Amazon’s Sidewalk Network before Wednesday, June 9th, when Amazon turns it on. My recommendation though, is to opt in.
Amazon designed the Sidewalk Network with the intent to provide connectivity between home wifi networks and cellular coverage. This provides low-cost connectivity for devices that are out of wifi range but where cellular radios aren’t a fit due to cost, size or battery limitations. These Low-Power Wide-Area Networks (LPWANs) have attempted to gain ground for a years as companies have tried to provide coverage for IoT devices.
The biggest challenges in building these networks is cost and power consumption. It doesn’t make sense to invest in an expensive cellular module in a device if someone wants to build a sensor that shares data a few times a day. But with access to cheaper connectivity, other possibilities present themselves. An inexpensive radio coupled with inexpensive data would mean the cost of running the device could be much lower. And it could be built into the cost of the product, which could motivate the development of a lot of new products.
A great example is Level, which will use the Sidewalk Network for connectivity inside its smart lock. Level will be able to avoid building wifi in its smart locks, keeping device costs down. Their locks have Bluetooth and Zigbee radios so Level can save on cost and battery consumption. But when the lock is outside of a smart home user’s phone’s Bluetooth range, it can connect with the lock via Sidewalk.
With the Sidewalk Network, Level’s requests can use Bluetooth to get on the Sidewalk mesh and then back to the Internet, where the app can communicate with the lock. This is an interesting use case as it eliminates the bridges many smart homes have to connect Bluetooth devices back to wifi and the internet.
Amazon introduced the Sidewalk Network in late 2019 along with Ring products (Amazon owns Ring). The link was that Sidewalk could benefit Ring products by allowing them to be outside of the home wifi range. Amazon explained that its Echo devices, certain Ring devices and its Eero routers (Amazon also owns Eero) would contain sub-gigahertz radios that would support Amazon’s new Sidewalk protocol.
The network would use the Sidewalk protocol Amazon developed over radios that use the same frequency as LoRa networks to send small packets of data up to half a mile. Amazon has stated it will work over Bluetooth as well. The mesh network would then transmit those packets back to the internet through its customers’ broadband networks. Think of it as a neighborhood mesh network that supports a variety of smart home devices. The ante for membership? Only up to 500MB a month (half a gigabyte). Amazon is building this network because there is a genuine need for a cheap IoT network with long-range coverage.
For people in rural areas or those running their Amazon devices on a metered plan with a low cap, losing up to 500MB a month might be too much. This amount is not likely to be reached however, in remotely rural areas without a lot of participating devices.
Obviously when you start discussing networks, devices and the internet, security and privacy have to be a consideration. We’ve all heard about (and probably seen) the creepy ads for stuff based on your browser history. And Amazon has been under the microscope about privacy but through Sidewalk, they cannot see the packets sent over the network or how those packets are routed.
There are also plenty of people who simply distrust Amazon — ironically even while still using the Amazon Alexa or Ring devices that would put them in danger of participating in the network. If you have the devices and opt out because you don’t trust Amazon, you need really re-evaluate your reasons for deploying the devices in the first place. Why are you still giving Amazon so much space in your home and so many dollars from your wallet?
After reading up on the security details of Sidewalk, their security protocols look pretty good. I think a lot of the concerns surround users’ insecurities about their smart home networks and that they simply don’t want their home network to be used as a bridge for unknown packets. The funny part is that many smart home users’ swear by Apple products and Apple’s AirTags and FindMy network run on a similar principle of using your home or cellular data to share Bluetooth location data across an ad-hoc mesh network.
Another issue people seem to be having with Sidewalk is that by automatically opting people in, Amazon is getting an enormous network for free — at the expense of their bandwidth. I can certainly understand this and am not the biggest fan of it either. But it’s doing it because it’s hard to build a wireless network and get devices on that network unless there’s already widespread coverage. And getting widespread coverage is also hard — and expensive. But for a company sitting in the number two position on the Fortune 500 list just behind the world’s biggest retailer Walmart, there should be some kind of incentive for those who opt in. Would it break them to provide a digital credit for a free movie or something similar to get people on board with this? Perhaps many of those preaching to you and I to opt out have this in mind by making Amazon feel the loss so deeply that it offers us something.
Hopefully I’ve been able to make a good argument here for opting in on Sidewalk. I believe the benefits far outweigh the concerns. But if you see Sidewalk as a code name for SkyNet and fear the coming apocalypse and being hunted by killer machines, Here’s how to opt out:
- Open your Ring app
- Tap the three-lines in the upper left-hand corner of the screen
- Tap Control Center
- Tap Sidewalk
- Tap the Sidewalk slider button
- You will see a screen asking you to confirm that you want to disable Sidewalk
- Confirm that you wish to disable Sidewalk.
You can opt back in to Sidewalk by repeating the above procedures.
Debbie and I continue to work on the elevation design for our home. Our floor plan is fairly complete and I’ve been working on interior detail drawings for finish-out — cabinets, shelving, fireplace — basically interior elevations. We’re preparing to hit the ground running once issues like the price of wood — up 350% since May of last year — are resolved one way or another.
From a smart home perspective I continue to research and evaluate new technologies, platforms and integrations. The goal is still to maximize efficiency, quality of life, reduce operating costs and align with sustainability. I have more coming on smart kitchen capabilities as I continue to introduce new and innovative technology options for our kitchen.
We still haven’t been able to make any progress on the lot leveling as it has continued to rain pretty regularly in Canyon. Debbie and I have been trying hard not to take circumstances personally from the price of wood, a crazy winter — 33 inches of snow where an average year produces 15 inches — and an incredibly wet spring. We have a small pond on the property that the contractor is waiting to dry up. The next two weeks have no rain in the forecast and temperatures in the 80’s and 90’s so it looks like that may do the trick.
Debbie and I hope you all had a great Memorial Day weekend. I didn’t post last weekend as we were enjoying time with family and friends. But we’re back “by popular demand” and appreciate the feedback and questions from you all — so please keep them coming via the blog, DMS and email. I’d especially like to hear from you regarding your thoughts and plans around Amazon Sidewalk. Until next week …
In full disclosure, I’m not an affiliate marketer with links to any online retailer on my website. When people read what I’ve written about a particular product and then click on those links and buy something from the retailer, I earn nothing from the retailer. The links are strictly a convenience for my readers.
