Today Amazon is turning on Sidewalk, a way to extend internet service between Amazon devices like Echo smart speakers and Ring cameras. Unless you opt out, your Amazon devices will automatically start participating in this connectivity bacchanal.
Amazon has talked about Sidewalk for a while, so it’s no surprise that the switch is finally flipping. Sidewalk uses the always-on Amazon devices that are already in your home to create a sort of mesh network to keep up connectivity. If one Sidewalk-enabled device loses internet access, it can grab some bandwidth from another one in the vicinity. As a result, the more devices that have Sidewalk turned on, the better it will work. This probably explains why Amazon took its usual approach of turning it on by default. If you don’t want your devices to be roped in, you need to actively change some settings.
Amazon has emphasized its commitment to privacy and security in designing Sidewalk, and even released a white paper to detail all the protections in the service. At the moment, it doesn't appear to endanger your data to snoops. And it can enable some genuine conveniences, like being better able to find Tile trackers thanks to a recently announced partnership. But there are still good reasons that you might not want your devices participating and shar ..
Support the originator by clicking the read the rest link below.
