Amazon Sidewalk is a new wireless long-distance network for your things – TechCrunch
At the Seattle annual hardware event, Amazon today announced Sidewalk, a new wireless, long-range wireless protocol the company is developing to connect all IoT devices in and around your home.
Amazon argues that Bluetooth and WiFi do not have enough range, while 5F takes too much power and is too complicated.
"We came up with something we call the Amazon Sidewalk," Amazon Device Manager Dave Limp said during the event today. “Amazon Sidewalk is a brand new low bandwidth network that uses the already existing free over 900 megahertz spectrum. We think it will be great to keep track of things, keep things up to date ̵[ads1]1; but first and foremost it will extend into the distance where you can control such simple, affordable and user-friendly devices.
The details here remain a bit vague, but Amazon says you may be able to use the Sidewalk to connect devices that may be up to a mile away, depending on how the base station and devices are located.
Amazon already sent 700 test units to households in LA to test access points – and once you have a lot of access points, you create a network with some pretty broad coverage.
Amazon says it will publish the protocol so that other device manufacturers can also integrate it into their devices.
The first product to use Sidewalk? A dog tag, so hopefully you will see fewer lost dogs at your local Nextdoor in the near future, because if your dog now leaves the perimeter, you will be notified. This new tag, Ring Fetch, will be launched next year.
