Amazon Sidewalk will be available this month in your neighbourhood.
Some Amazon Echo devices have spontaneously enabled the new Sidewalk feature, a free neighbourhood network sharing service announced last year. While Amazon doesn’t intend to launch this feature until later this month, it didn’t stop the new feature from being enabled in some peoples’ Alexa apps.
What is Amazon Sidewalk?
Amazon Sidewalk is a free network sharing service throughout neighbourhoods that uses Echo devices as bridges to share a small fraction of your home’s Wi-Fi bandwidth with Sidewalk-compatible devices. There are data caps in place that won’t exceed 500MB, or one-fortieth of your bandwidth. Sidewalk uses Bluetooth low energy, 900 MHz spectrum and other frequencies to create a low-bandwidth network in your neighbourhood.
Each Echo is able to extend coverage for up to half a mile. For each Echo in your neighbourhood with Sidewalk turned on, the internet bandwidth is pooled together to create a larger shared network. It’s essentially like sharing Wi-Fi with your neighbours when you’re out of reach of your own network. The more people who contribute, the stronger your local outdoor network will be for you and your neighbours, Amazon claims.
How does Amazon Sidewalk affect my Echo speaker?
Your Echo speaker acts as a “bridge” from your home’s Wi-Fi to offer bandwidth to other devices outside your house. This means others can draw from your network, and vice versa. For example, if your Echo device loses Wi-Fi connection, Sidewalk can help it to remain connected by linking up to a neighbours Sidewalk connection.
When will Sidewalk start working on my Echo?
While you may see Sidewalk in the Alexa app already, the service itself isn’t active, so you can’t use it yet. Amazon hasn’t announced a specific launch date, but says it will be available by the end of 2020. Since we’re now in December, it’s likely you can expect to see it within weeks.
Amazon hasn’t said which devices will first go online at launch, but as with most new features, it will roll out to people at different times. Amazon will notify you when the service becomes available.
How can I turn Amazon Sidewalk off?
To turn off Amazon Sidewalk, open the Alexa app and select More > Settings > Account Settings > Amazon Sidewalk and toggle the switch off. Note that it may already be turned off. There’s also a switch called Community Finding, which you can toggle on or off to help your neighbours find their items connected to Sidewalk.
Which Amazon Echo devices will work with Sidewalk?
Here’s a list of Echo speakers that are compatible with Sidewalk. Note that only the Echo Show 10 and the new spherical Echo are the only speakers that can send long-range, low-bandwidth signals on the 900 MHz band (in other words, the most effective at sharing a connection longer distances).
Amazon Echo (second-gen, 2017, BLE only)
Amazon Echo (third-gen, 2019, BLE only)
Amazon Echo (fourth-gen, 2020, BLE and 900MHz)
Amazon Echo Dot with Clock (first-gen, 2019, BLE only)
Amazon Echo Dot with Clock (second-gen, 2020, BLE only)
Amazon Echo Dot (first-gen, 2016, BLE only)
Amazon Echo Dot (second-gen, 2016, BLE only)
Amazon Echo Dot (third-gen, 2018, BLE only)
Amazon Echo Dot (fourth-gen, 2020, BLE only)
Amazon Echo Dot Kids Edition (third-gen, 2020, BLE only)
Amazon Echo Plus (first-gen, 2017, BLE only)
Amazon Echo Plus (second-gen, 2018, BLE only)
Amazon Echo Show (first-gen, 2017, BLE only)
Amazon Echo Show (second-gen, 2018, BLE only)
Amazon Echo Show 5 (2019, BLE only)
Amazon Echo Show 8 (2019, BLE only)
Amazon Echo Show 10 (2020, BLE and 900 MHz)
Amazon Echo Spot (2017, BLE only)
Amazon Echo Studio (2018, BLE only)
