Understanding Amazon Sidewalk
Did you know that Amazon Echo is sharing your internet by default? By default, Echo and Ring devices automatically activate a feature called Amazon Sidewalk, which shares a portion of your bandwidth with neighbors, unbeknownst to many users. Who thought that was a good idea? Many believe that this feature should be something you opt-in instead of being enabled by default. The good thing is, it can easily be turned off.
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Privacy and Security Concerns
So, what exactly is the purpose of Amazon sidewalk? It basically takes a small fraction of you internet bandwidth to create a neighborhood mesh network to extend the range of Amazon gear. People using these newer Amazon devices with Sidewalk enabled will be able to hook up these devices farther away from their router or other Amazon gear and maintain a reliable connection. Depending on your neighborhood and the number of Sidewalk participants, you may be able to hook up devices several blocks away from your home. I don’t think this is a bad feature but many people have expressed concerns over privacy and security. Amazon, of course, seems pretty confident that there will be no issues with privacy and security stating that the Sidewalk network uses three layers of encryption. Honestly, I think it is a pretty bold statement as this technology is still relativity new so it is hard to predict until it becomes more widely used and tested.
If you are the owner of one of these Amazon devices and have privacy concerns like many others, it is very easy to disable the feature until you are ready to give it a try.
Disabling Amazon Sidewalk
- Open the Alexa app on your smartphone and tap “More” in the lower right corner.
- Tap “Settings” then “Account Settings”
- Tap “Amazon Sidewalk” and switch it to disabled.
Pretty easy right? And if you decide you want to use it, just follow the same steps and set the slider to enabled.
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I am more of a Google device person myself but most any smart device does come with it’s share of privacy concerns. If you want to learn more about Amazon Sidewalk, check out C|net’s Guide on Amazon Sidewalk