Amazon Sidewalk: a new way to stay connected

Last fall, we first announced our vision for Amazon Sidewalk, a neighborhood network designed to make your devices work better—both inside your home and beyond the front door. Operated by Amazon at no charge to customers, Amazon Sidewalk uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), the 900 MHz spectrum, and other frequencies to simplify new device setup, extend the low-bandwidth working range of devices, and help devices stay online and up-to-date even if they are outside the range of home Wi-Fi.

Launching later this year, Amazon Sidewalk will provide immediate benefits to customers. For example, with Sidewalk, you can continue to receive motion alerts from your security cameras even when your Wi-Fi goes down. Or if your Wi-Fi does not reach your smart lights at the edge of your driveway, Sidewalk can help them stay connected. In the future, Sidewalk will also support a range of experiences from using Sidewalk-enabled devices to help find pets or valuables, to smart security and lighting, to diagnostics for appliances and tools.

How Amazon Sidewalk works
Customers will be able to access Sidewalk using two types of devices: Sidewalk Bridges and Sidewalk-enabled devices. Sidewalk Bridges, including select Ring Floodlight Cams and Ring Spotlight Cams, are devices that provide connections to Sidewalk. Sidewalk-enabled devices connect to Sidewalk Bridges to access the network. Customers with a Sidewalk Bridge can contribute a small portion of their internet bandwidth, which is pooled together to create a shared network that benefits all Sidewalk-enabled devices in a community.

Echo and Tile join Amazon Sidewalk

We’re excited to announce that many Echo devices will also support Amazon Sidewalk. Echo customers with eligible devices, including the all-new Echo and Echo Show 10, will be able to use Echo as a Sidewalk Bridge to help compatible devices automatically connect or reconnect to their router, set up new Echo devices, or locate items connected to Sidewalk. And Tile will also offer the first third-party Sidewalk-enabled device and experience on Sidewalk to help customers find misplaced keys or wallets, or locate a backpack left at a neighborhood picnic.

Connections that can help your community
Beyond the benefits Amazon Sidewalk provides in and around your home, Sidewalk offers new ways for neighbors to support efforts that have a positive impact on their community. Beginning later this year, we will begin a new proof of concept with the American Red Cross, which supplies about 40 percent of the nation’s blood. We’ll explore if Amazon Sidewalk can support the tracking of blood collections supplies between distribution centers and donation sites to add new efficiencies within the blood donation supply chain.

To support this effort, Amazon is donating the devices, technology, and teams needed for this proof of concept. We hope Sidewalk can help the American Red Cross deliver a vital service to the community.

Protecting your security and privacy
Customer privacy and security is foundational to Amazon Sidewalk. The Sidewalk network uses three layers of encryption to keep data shared over the network safe, and the same strong encryption standards are required for all applications and devices that use the network.

For customers who choose to pool their bandwidth with neighbors, we ensure owners of other devices cannot view data sent from your devices. Sidewalk is also built with maximum upload limits and bandwidth caps to preserve internet bandwidth for Sidewalk Bridge customers. Customers can also choose to turn off network support on Sidewalk Bridges without impacting the original functionality of the device. Those interested in learning more about the many privacy and security protections built into Sidewalk can read more here.

What’s next
Later this month, customers who own compatible Ring Floodlight and Spotlight Cams will receive an email and a notification in the Ring app where they can read more about participating in the Amazon Sidewalk network and adjust feature controls to their preference. Echo customers with a compatible device will receive this communication and control option later this year. Please visit amazon.com/sidewalk to learn more about our long-term vision for Sidewalk.

Additional Resources